Have It All
by ohnosteve
Summary: When Goku Son is unexpectedly enrolled in an expensive and selective boarding school after a sudden windfall he makes it his mission to unite in friendship an eclectic group with only their culture of excess in common. AU. B/V, G/CC, K/18
1. Chapter 1: A New Name

Summary:_ When Goku Son is unexpectedly enrolled in an expensive boarding school he makes it his mission to unite in friendship an eclectic group with only their culture of excess in common. B/V, G/CC, K/18_

This is very obviously a high school fic. Out of vogue? I don't know. This is a little less Americana than the ones I've read, as necessitated by the fact that I know next to nothing about American high schools. The language is probably going to get pretty crude in the dialogue in places (maybe not this chapter) because, well, it's a story about spoilt sixteen-year-olds, essentially. Sorry.

**Chapter One: A New Name**

If any of Goku Son's friends from his old school had heard that he was quaking in his boots at the prospect of meeting new people, they would have laughed so hard something vital might have burst. Goku almost laughed himself, before remembering that he really was sitting in a strange room in a strange building in a strange part of the country, waiting to meet strange new people from a strange part of society he had never before been in contact with.

Not six months before this moment, Goku had been calmly eating dinner with his grandfather when two people had burst through the door claiming to be Goku's parents. After the initial shock, Grandpa Gohan seemed to recognise them and, although he was bewildered at their sudden reappearance so late in their son's life, there was no doubt that this was his son and his wife, the boy's natural parents. Goku had been a little more incredulous. He had always thought they were dead.

Inquiries as to the Sons' very extended absence, the abandonment of their then-infant son and, especially, the origin of the large sums of money they were flashing around all went unanswered but it seemed, at least, that they were determined to use this mystery wealth to improve their youngest child's prospects in life. A round of applications went out to the most exclusive schools in the country and Goku was rejected from every one.

For two weeks Goku's new parents had been enraged at the idea that their son wasn't good enough for these fancy schools. They had made angry phone calls. They had driven out to schools halfway across the country just to try and explain what a cherub their son was, as though they had watched him grow up and not just driven up once he was nearly an adult. And, just as abruptly as they had blown up, they cooled down. Not a word was said about the school issue and Goku had been glad to go back to his friends without worrying about being removed from his current school.

A month later he had received an acceptance letter addressed to him by his middle name. It had informed him that 'Kakarrot Son' was invited to join the student body at Orange Star College as a sixth form boy at the beginning of the next academic year. Goku knew that Orange Star College was a very expensive, very exclusive boarding school north of town. He also knew that Orange Star had sent 'Goku Son' a letter declining his enrollment, only to now accept 'Kakarrot Son', who wasn't even a real person, as a student.

When he had asked his parents about it, they just smiled and told him things were working out well for him now.

Right now, Goku wasn't sure things were working out so well. Everyone had been very polite to him so far, even though he had arrived at the college quite late and all the other students were doing things in the school proper while he fiddled about in his assigned bedroom, trying to put away his things neatly and wondering about the kind of person his room mate must be. The only signs another boy even lived in the room were the empty cases at the foot of the bed and the crisp folded clothes in his drawers.

Goku had only been at school two hours and he was already going through other people's things. It was a relief, then, to hear a knock on the door and be forcefully pulled out of what he could only conclude was a sudden descent into crime and villainy.

At first, Goku thought someone had knocked and run away. A small cough alerted him to the fact that he was actually just looking over the top of his visitor's head.

"Oh, hi!"

"Woah, you are way too tall. Everyone here is around my height, you're going to stick out like a sore thumb."

He knew it, he just knew it. Rich people were midgets. Well, that was it, Goku's life was ruined. He'd be a freak here at this midget school.

"Oh, uh, geeze." The little guy was grinning incredulously and waving his hands in front of him. "I was just kidding; you don't need to look so scared. You really haven't met any other students yet?" Goku shook his head. "Well, you missed the induction for all the new sixth formers, so I'm up here to collect you and show you around a bit. Give you the low down." He paused. "You are Kakarrot Son, right?"

Goku blinked owlishly. Then he remembered the strange letter. "Oh, yeah, I guess so. Just call me Goku though."

The small boy shrugged. "Whatever floats your boat. Krillin Chastain, by the way. Stick with me and you'll be alright."

"Did all your hair fall out?"

"What? It's gone? My hair!" Krillin rubbed his hands over his scalp in frantic motions. Goku panicked. "Seriously though, no, I shave it." Goku stopped hopping from one foot to another.

"Oh. My brochure says we're not allowed have hair shorter than three inches."

"Well, I don't have hair shorter than three inches. I don't have any hair." He winked.

The taller boy scrunched his nose up for a moment, considering the argument, then shrugged. "I guess not."

"Anyway I got my parents to write a note saying it was a religious thing." As soon as Goku opened his mouth, Krillin held up a hand. "It's not. The note just stops the staff harassing me about it."

They crossed a patch of lawn that separated the main school buildings from the dormitories and entered an impressive stone building. "What are you taking?" Krillin asked.

"Huh?"

"What subjects are you taking?"

"Oh!" Goku laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry! I'm taking, uh... Home Economics, Sport Science, ICT and History."

"Bit light on there, huh?" Goku looked at him quizzically, so Krillin elaborated. "Usually the students that come in at sixth form get a place because they were whiz kids at their old schools; they don't often take any of the applied subjects, and a lot of them give five a go and see how the workload suits them."

"Oh. I don't know how I got in, really. I'm not that great at school."

Krillin's eyebrows soared up his forehead, and he turned his face away so the new boy wouldn't see his surprise. "Well, I'll show you the kitchens first. They're downstairs."

They made their way across to another building, the building in which Goku's new bedroom was located being strictly residential, then traipsed down a flight of stairs and a long hallway to the kitchens, and Goku let out a low, impressed whistle. The facilities here, much like everywhere else in the school, seemed they were out of a movie to a small town, small income boy like Goku. He peered through the windows to the classrooms and spotless stainless steel stretched out forever.

"One of these kitchens is just for sixth formers. I think it's the one you're looking at." Krillin explained. He was bored down here, but it was better than listening to a speech from the headmaster, which was what anyone who hadn't managed to escape the afternoon assembly would be doing.

"Eesh." he said suddenly, as a pair of girls rounded the corridor and entered the kitchen in question, completely ignoring the two boys in the hall. "Yep, that's the sixth form kitchen alright."

"How do you know?" Goku asked.

"See those two girls?" Goku nodded. "The redhead's Pippa Preston. Pretty innocuous, a little loud-mouthed. Dad in shipping, mother in advertising. The dark one's Chichi Mao, don't know what her parents do. We call her The Chairman. Say it to her face. That'd be a laugh. They're going around now and choosing all the 'best' cookware and putting it at Chichi's station before the first practical, probably don't even know when pracs'll be starting."

"What's she chairman of?"

"Huh?"

"You said you call her the chairman, so what's she chairman of?"

"Uhh." Goku turned around to wait for an answer and Krillin cringed. "You really don't get the joke? It's just a kind of mean nickname for her. Her surname's Mao. M-A-O. Chichi Mao, Chairman Mao, The Chairman? She'll drive a man to suicide? You know what, don't sweat it. You don't want to talk to her, anyway."

"Well, I'll look up Chairman Mao anyway. He's a Chinese guy right?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll show you some of the general classrooms and computer labs now. Back upstairs."

They walked through the ground and first floors in relative silence, Krillin pointing out important rooms and Goku nodding. As they mounted the stairs to the second floor where, Krillin explained, most of the computers were, Goku broached a subject that had been on his mind.

"Is it really so important what your parents do?"

Krillin tilted his head uncertainly.

"Earlier, when you were telling me about Pippa and Chichi you mentioned both their parents. People didn't do that at my old school."

"Oh. Uh..." Krillin looked uncomfortable. "Where did you go to school previously?"

"Just the comprehensive in town." He pointed with his thumb to the south and Krillin cringed.

"Wow, yeah, okay things are going to be pretty different here, I guess. People like to know where everyone else's money comes from, and what your parents do basically defines your future for a lot of people here." Goku's brow creased. This was unfamiliar ground for him. Surely if these kids had so much money they could do whatever they wanted with their lives.

Krillin sighed. "Okay, so take the Briefs girl for example, if you can stomach her. New money, flashy clothes and all that, takes herself very seriously but she doesn't have much choice, career-wise. Daddy built a highly successful company from the ground up and one way or another she is going to take over the family business. The only freedom for her would be choosing how technical she wants to get with the core of the business, or if she wants to be purely management. Either way, she's sitting in the company president chair whether she likes it or not."

"Oh." Goku felt like all he was saying today was 'oh'. He hadn't expected any of this. Krillin wasn't snooty like he'd imagined, and it was beginning to seem as though maybe he wasn't the only normal kid around here, either. Or at least, not the only kid whose life wasn't fairytale perfect awesome.

"Then you have families like the König boys; no less likely to make you want to throw up in your mouth, but for different reasons. They're old money. I'm actually pretty sure they're lords or dukes or some shit like that, as if anyone cares about that these days. Anyway, they can do almost anything they like with their lives as long as their father approves, because they've got a massive income from investments and property, an enormous heap of assets that's not disappearing any time soon, and no real responsibilities career-wise. Their future's still defined by their money and their parents, though. The little one wants to be an artist or a musician or something useless like that and it'll never happen because the dad won't approve."

"So what do your parents do?" Goku asked, looking in at the elaborate computer labs.

Krillin made a choking noise. "My parents?"

"Yeah, you said it's important, right?"

"Uhh, not in this case. Let's not bother about that."

"Now you've just made me curious. Come on, what do they do?"

The smaller boy sighed heavily. "Alright, alright. If you really have to know..." he mumbled something unintelligible.

"What was that?"

"Plumbers, alright! My parents are plumbers who made the right business decisions at the right time and now there's a huge company and they've got all this property and we're rolling in it. Just... just don't tell anyone, alright? I've been telling people they're big time architects since first form and I don't intend to give it up with only two years to go."

"Okay, I won't tell anyone, but I don't get why it's such a big deal. One of my friends is going to be a plumber now he's left school. It's a pretty good job, I reckon. Maybe your parents could give him a job."

Krillin groaned. "Whatever. As long as you don't tell, we're fine."

"Then we're fine!" Goku grinned so broadly that Krillin couldn't help shaking his head and grinning with him.

"Come on, we're going to miss dinner if we're not quick."

* * *

For dinner, Goku was forcefully sat with a table full of other new students. He tried to chat with them, but they were serious-faced teenagers full of their own ambition and only wanted to discuss their study programmes, university choices and career plans. University wasn't for another two years, and Goku wasn't even sure he wanted to attend when the time came. He made many acquaintances at that table, but no friends. This was how he had imagined Orange Star College in the beginning, and he was glad he had met Krillin before anyone else.

He was even more grateful for Krillin's timing later that evening. Goku was sitting on his bed going over a brochure he had been given on 'games' at the school. He was more used to calling them sports, but his vocabulary was getting an overhaul just listening to the kids here.

The door opened and Goku sat up, suddenly alert. He still hadn't met the boy with whom he was to share the two person dorm.

"Hey so I've gone and dropped rugby for sailing but I think he's going to notice when he gets the-" the small boy who had been speaking stopped and frowned at Goku.

"Hi! I'm Goku." He grinned and held out his hand to shake. "Are you my room mate?"

"No." He shook the hand that was offered and looked around the room. "Have you seen my brother?"

"I don't even know what your brother looks like, sorry." He felt a little astonished by the boy's accent, which seemed to be conspiring to make Goku feel very small and uneducated just in the way it sounded its vowels.

"Like me. A little taller. He should be sitting right there." He gestured at a chair, sitting vacant in front of one the room's two desks. Goku shook his head. The boy sighed. Could a sigh sound ludicrously wealthy? Until this moment, Goku would have said no. Now he wasn't sure. "Well, I won't hang around then. If he comes back could you let him know that Tarble needs to speak to him and is feeling very harassed about the ceramics issue. Thanks."

Tarble, or at least Goku supposed he was the aforementioned Tarble, disappeared out the door again, and Goku was left on his own to ponder just how harassed someone could really get in relation to ceramics.

He wasn't alone for long before the door opened again, and Goku opened his mouth to tell Tarble that his brother hadn't come back before he realised this was the brother. A little taller, a little more athletic and a lot meaner, if the look Goku was getting was any indication.

"Hi!" he said, thrusting his hand out again. "I'm-"

"Are you Kakarrot Son?" he didn't speak so much as sneer; a long, low perfectly-enunciated drawl that expressed nothing but boredom and contempt for everything around him. Tarble's accent had made Goku feel small due mostly to his own insecurities; this boy, Goku thought, used his voice in a way that could make the queen feel like a homeless person asking for change.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so. You can call me Goku, though."

"Is or is not Kakarrot Son your name?"

"Well, technically I guess..."

"Then why would I call you anything else?" He turned his back to Goku and began pulling books from an as-yet-unpacked case at the foot of his bed, placing them on a shelf above the bed in some apparently intricate system. There was silence for a little while.

"I guess they told you my name, but I don't know yours yet."

"You didn't receive a room assignment sheet?" He turned around and looked at Goku with flat black eyes. "Vegeta König." He held out his hand this time, and Goku shook it eagerly.

"Your brother was here before. He said he needed to speak to you, and something about being harassed by ceramics." Vegeta shook his head and made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. "König, huh? I heard about you earlier today. Apparently you're really rich and princes or kings or something like that?"

The corner of Vegeta's mouth tugged upwards ever so slightly and he made a 'heh' sound. Goku felt like he had won some indefinable battle. "Not quite."

"But you're something, right?" If Goku was going to school with a real noble he wanted to know about it. Especially if he was sharing a room with him.

"Sort of. My father is a duke. As the Heir Apparent to that title I have the right to style myself using his highest lower title. If I wish I can go around demanding people call me 'My Lord', but it's just a courtesy title. I don't really own any titles until my father dies."

Goku looked at him blankly. "The highest lower title?"

"Fine." He snapped, "I'm an earl. Is that easier for your little brain to handle?" Goku grinned and nodded. Vegeta was mumbling something about sharing a bedroom with an idiot, but Goku was unconcerned with that.

"My friends are never going to believe I'm going to school and sharing a room with an actual earl." He dove into one of his bags and fished out a mobile phone. "I've got to tell everyone."

* * *

Thoughts? Yes/no/kill it with fire? Also it probably looks like I'm going in a character bashing direction with, uh, basically everyone, (mostly Chichi in this chapter, poor girl) but this is touching on how the other students view them at this point, not who they actually are. Except Vegeta. That guy's a dick, amirite.

Please leave me a review! I don't often (read: ever) post things I write publicly, so I would appreciate any feedback, even if it's just 'omg u sux' flames.

Next time: Goku is taking classes at an academically selective school, oh dear. Bulma! Yamcha! ...Oolong?


	2. Chapter 2: Me With A Jet

Wow, thank you for the lovely reviews GokuBootz and Lon Wolfgood. I'm feeling very flattered right about now. :)

Warnings for this chapter are general offensiveness from Oolong and probably also Krillin.

**Chapter Two: Me With A Jet**

Goku's first class at Orange Star College was in the computer labs. After a breakfast both ample and delicious (though notably lacking in company; he suspected he would be sitting with the other new additions for possibly the whole first week, much to his dismay) he felt keen to take on the rigours of academia. He had never been the top of any class at his old school, but he had never been at the bottom either and was eager to prove he could hold his own amongst all these pampered rich people who had been at a fancy school since they were eleven. He had a good work ethic and had done alright in his examinations last year, so he'd be fine here.

He wasn't.

Even before the actual work started he felt out of his element. The layout of the computer lab was not the straight up and down rows Goku was used to, but some sort of free-form ergonomic integrated open plan thing and as soon as the teacher came in it was evident he had sat down somewhere he shouldn't have, and he had to change computers. The teacher then proceeded to chat amicably with the students, all of whom she knew by name. She talked about things they had done in the previous form, expecting that Goku would have done it all at his previous school and he hadn't.

He could tell she thought he was stupid.

Actually, he could tell they all thought he was dim. At some point in the lesson, while he struggled to keep up with the teacher's rapid fire instructions she just waved a hand and said "Yamcha, help him out." Yamcha, a dark haired boy with a prominent scar on his face, had leant over to look at Goku's monitor, laughed, slapped Goku on the back and announced to the room that Goku's task today was beyond helping.

He had stayed behind at the end of class to work out with the teacher, whose name he still didn't know, a time when he could come to her for some tutoring, in addition to the evening sessions every student received. "Just until we catch you up on the fifth form work" she had said, but there was a wary note in her voice suggesting she thought he would need much, much more help than that.

He was, inevitably, late to his next class.

He scrambled down to the kitchens, and was dismayed to find that the class wasn't even convening there, but upstairs in a classroom, as there was no practical task today. Upon finally finding the room and slinking in to a chorus of disapproving gazes, Goku was further mortified to find that not only was there no practical today, there was unlikely to be any until next year and that the assessment would be essay based. Home Economics appeared to be a lousy mixture of sociology and biology, neither of which he had any particular interest in.

After the disappointment that was Home Economics, a reprieve came in the form of elevenses. Unlike dinner and breakfast, students weren't required to stay indoors to eat elevenses and Goku made a swift beeline away from his prior table-mates, looking for a friendly face, or at least a familiar one.

Eventually he spotted Krillin, sitting on a low stone wall at the edge of a courtyard with a small, piggish boy. "You know," Goku said as he approached the pair, "you told me you were joking about everyone here being short but so far a lot of you are."

Krillin looked up and laughed but the other boy, his round face flushed perpetually pink, crinkled his snub nose and gave Goku a sour look. "You're short," Goku explained, taking a seat next to Krillin and removing his pie from its paper, "your friend here is short, and my room-mate is short too, although not as little as you guys."

"This is Oolong Seward," Krillin explained. "His parents are in pig farming." Goku nodded. Pig farmers were a good sort. Without them, there'd be no bacon. A disaster, in Goku's eyes.

"I'm Goku Son. I don't know what my parents do." Oolong quirked a pale eyebrow but made no comment. He was probably assuming that Goku's family was in a business even more ignominious than pig farming, if the delight in his small eyes was anything to go by.

"Aaaand here come the girls!" Oolong announced, suddenly animated. Goku blinked at him, and then at the courtyard. A group of girls had come out carrying their food, and were sitting down on the grass. One of them, a short girl with fine, floaty blue hair, started taking off her jacket to lay out on the grass.

"Woooo!" Oolong exclaimed, waving a fist in the air. "Take it all off!"

"You're in for a show now." Krillin informed Goku, who momentarily thought he might mean the girl really was going to take it all off. "Remember I mentioned the Briefs girl?" Goku nodded. "Well, here's her in action."

She was storming over to them now, hunched over with so much rage that Goku half expected the grass to burst into flames wherever she stepped. "You disgusting little pig!" She was yelling at Oolong, and Goku felt a little better knowing he was out of the line of fire for now. "You should have been expelled a long time ago."

"Maybe you should discipline me" Oolong replied cheerfully.

"Ugh!" The girl reached down and removed one of her low-heeled shoes. Oolong and Krillin both did a double-take upon the production of the shoe, but the small boy was unable to escape before the Briefs girl began beating him over the head with her shoe.

"Woah, woah! Bulma! Calm down!" Krillin was trying to grab the shoe from her hand but although she couldn't have been more than 5'3" her reach was still superior to his. After watching incredulously for a moment, Goku walked up behind Bulma and snatched the shoe.

"Hey! What did you do that for? And who are you, anyway?" She placed her hands on her hips and glared up at him. She was a little looser with the uniform restrictions than some of the other girls Goku had seen walking around the grounds. A pair of large sunglasses ornamented the top of her head, sparkling with what he hoped were fake diamonds, her skirt was a little shorter than it should have been, her shirt a little less buttoned and her jewellery a little more elaborate.

"Are those real jewels in your sunglasses?"

"Of course!" She was all smiles now, taking off the sunglasses to show them to anyone who would look, preening under the attention. Oolong cradled his injured head in his hands and thanked his lucky stars for the reprieve. "Diamonds, you know." She basked in the glow of his surprise and fascination for a moment before returning to her question. "You didn't answer me. Who are you?"

"My name's Goku Son. I just started this year."

"Bulma Briefs. My father owns Capsule Corporation. Invented the Hoi-Poi Capsule. Single-handedly re-invigorated this country's economy, some say. I'm a scientist too." She looked very pleased with herself, so Goku made some impressed noises. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"Oh! Sorry, I don't know what my parents do."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, so that the mass of wavy hair floated out around her like a strange cloud. "Whatever."

"Odd girl." Goku commented after Bulma took her shoe and returned to her friends.

"That's charitable of you." Krillin replied with a wry smile.

"Fit, though." Oolong added. "Big tits." He cast a sly look at his bald compatriot. "Krillin probably wouldn't notice. He's all hung up on another girl."

The boy in question blushed, and Goku laughed. "That's great. Your whole head goes red when you blush! What's this girl like?"

"There's no girl," Krillin insisted, "Everything Oolong says about anything is pants. You shouldn't listen to him."

Oolong shook his head. "Everybody knows you're hot for 18, Krillin."

The red scalp blanched suddenly. "Everybody?!" Krillin squeaked.

"Ha! No, but now you've admitted to it. I was just going to go through the name of every blonde in the school until I got a reaction."

"18?" Goku asked.

"Oh!" Oolong jumped up into a standing position on the wall. "I forgot you don't know her. Well, let's just say Krillin has a thing for tall, self-possessed blondes and leave it at that." He was looking smug now, but although Goku had already had a class with 18, he had no idea she was the girl in question. Orange Star College was in possession of an over-abundance of tall blondes, and so far Goku hadn't met anyone here who didn't fit the description 'self-possessed'. Some of them probably even fit the more general 'possessed'.

"I don't have a thing for her." Krillin scoffed. "Who could? There's only one way to describe her: Ice Queen."

"Yeah," Oolong nodded. "I heard a guy made it with her once and as soon as he stuck it in his dick got frostbite and fell off. True story."

* * *

Sports Science, the subject Goku had expected to enjoy most, was a bust. He might as well have taken biology. After a free study period and then lunch, however, his first day at Orange Star College was looking up. The regular timetable hadn't been instated for this afternoon and instead there was a scramble on the lawn, with small marquees set up for the various sports and extra-curricular activities on offer. Goku's two compulsory sports had already been decided as part of his enrolment, but he wanted to sign up for as many as he could. They had games here that he had never even considered playing before now.

Goku had waited until he spotted Krillin and Oolong, then gravitated towards them. "What are you signing up for?"

"As little as possible", Oolong replied.

Krillin laughed. "Oolong's pissy because his major sports might actually require physical exertion; they've stopped letting you sign up for like 'croquet and golf' as your games and not doing any physical extras either, which is what he's been doing since first form. To answer your question, though, my majors are football and athletics, and I might put down for swimming as well. I usually do extra-curricular drama, too, but this year the Chairman's probably going to be chairing, so I don't know."

"What's so bad about her, anyway?"

Krillin sighed and began wandering over to a tent marked 'Swimming', Goku falling in step behind him. "She's just... she's crazy, Goku. Bossy, violent, self-righteous. Pretty much everyone here is crazy. It's hard not to be crazy when you live in a castle or own a private jet, but it doesn't make them any easier to live with."

"Oh, I don't know. I think I'd be the same person if I had a jet. I'd be me, but just me with a jet."

Krillin laughed. "Yeah, Goku, I bet you would." He looked over at the drama stall, which was bedecked in so much crepe paper trimming even the crafts club stall looked plain and lonely by comparison. Chichi was extolling the virtues of theatre to anyone who walked too close ("No, you idiot, it's _not_ dead!") and busily bullying people into signing up. "Well, that's swimming done. Did you want to give anything else a go?"

"Well, I don't know how to play rugby so I won't do that. What's debating like?"

"Arguing."

"Never mind then." Goku concentrated and scanned the crowd. "Wow! What's 'mooting'? Is that a sport? It sounds like maybe it involves ducks."

"Ducks? Not really, Goku, I don't think that'd be your kind of thing. It's like a pretend court of law thing. Awful lot like more schoolwork, really, bunch of posh twats do it. Why?"

"They have an armchair! Are you sure there's no ducks?"

"They do?" Krillin craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the stall with an armchair out on the lawn. He eventually resorted to pushing through the other students and just approaching the stall in question. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

"Hi, Vegeta and Vegeta's friends." Goku waved at the stall as he and Krillin got close. Where the other booths were, aside from the tent itself, composed of trestle tables with sign-up sheets and a few posters with information on the sport or activity, this was simply a sign saying 'MOOTING' above a few sixth formers arranged on and around a plush armchair. It looked expensive. It looked possibly antique. It didn't look like something they would have been given permission to bring onto the grass. Everybody involved looked smug.

"Hello, chaps." Vegeta greeted them languidly, waving a clipboard in their general direction but not rising from the chair. "Come to sign up?" The other students in the stall smiled what Krillin would later tell Goku were 'their best shit-eating smiles'.

"I don't know," Goku replied, "is mooting fun? Are there ducks?"

"Ducks? Never mind. What are you taking?" Goku told him and again he saw the corner of Vegeta's mouth quirk minutely. "In that case, no. This is not fun at all. Maybe try the pottery club?"

"Oookay?" Goku had the feeling there was a joke here that he wasn't privy to. "What about you, Krillin?"

"You actually might like mooting, Krillin," volunteered a girl carrying a hockey stick. She was tall and blonde with a lot of white teeth and an idea occurred to Goku. He leant over and whispered in his friend's ear.

"Is this the girl you like?" Apparently he hadn't whispered softly enough, because every person inside the tent burst out laughing, and Krillin turned bright red. Goku thought his head looked like a ripe tomato.

"No!" He snapped. "No it is not."

"Kakarrot, this is Quitterie Anouilh. You're looking for 18 Gero, I imagine, although I understand our bald friend here will fawn after any long-legged blonde if given the opportunity. 18 was a member last year though, Krillin, if you're interested. You never know." Vegeta grinned, but Goku thought it was somehow an unfriendly grin, definitely at odds with Vegeta calling Krillin his friend. It was predatory, in fact. More a baring of the canines than an expression of happiness or amusement.

"No thanks." Krillin mumbled unhappily, and they made their way very quickly in the opposite direction. "God, Goku, why would you say that? Seriously."

"Sorry." Goku fidgeted unhappily. "I guess I should have known. She's a tall, self-possessed blonde, but she doesn't seem like an ice queen. Quite friendly, I thought."

"Quitterie, friendly?" Goku nodded and Krillin breathed out in a whistle. "Goku you have got to stop taking people at face value. She's not friendly. Calculating is probably the nicest word I can come up with for her, if we exclude comments on her physical assets which, you should note, she uses as a weapon. If you ever think she seems interested in you, she thinks there's something she can gain by letting you feel her up behind the tennis courts. She shouldn't have even been at that tent, she has other places to be, but she's always sniffing around König trying to make sure no other girl gets to him before she does. As if anyone would seriously want the prat."

Goku blinked. "You never seem to say nice things about the people here, Krillin."

"They never seem to be nice people."

"Maybe you just need a better attitude is all." Krillin didn't reply, and Goku felt the need to fill the silence. "So, is Quitterie Vegeta's girlfriend, then?"

"Ha!" Krillin grinned. "Not even close. She just tries to warn off everyone else because she wants his money, and wants people to say 'My Lady' when they talk to her." He paused. "He's probably shagged her, though, lucky bastard. Legs going all the way to her arse."

"Where else would they go?" Goku asked, and Krillin laughed, his spirits already restored.

They wandered around together until the scramble began to wind down, having long since lost Oolong to the temptations of the lacrosse tent. "Is there anything else you think I should try?" Goku asked.

"Probably tennis. It's a bit gay but pretty much everyone plays it at least a bit, so it's a great way to make friends. You get to play mixed with the girls, too. I'd give it a go myself but I'm not that much higher than the net, so it's a bit of a trial."

"I've never played," Goku replied, shaking his head.

"Doesn't matter, really." Krillin told him. "It's the most popular game amongst the chronically unathletic. There'd be someone at your standard for sure." He thought for a moment. "And the girls wear incredibly short skirts."

Goku shrugged and went to the appropriate tent. He was the last name on the sign up sheet before the students manning the stall began folding up the trestle table and pulling down their signs. He rejoined Krillin and they began the march indoors.

"Krillin!" Both boys turned at the sound of his name. They were standing roughly in front of the drama booth, and Chichi was sitting on her folding chair, looking at them pleadingly.

"Krillin, aren't you signing up for drama club this year?"

"Oh, well, uh." Krillin fidgeted nervously. "I wasn't going to. You know, with the workload for sixth being what it is."

"Oh." Her face fell and her narrow shoulders slumped. "We just haven't had many sign-ups from the usual crew this year."

Krillin bit back the urge to say 'maybe because there's a crazy bitch running it this year', and instead just looked around anxiously.

"Hi, Chichi, I'm Goku Son." she blinked up at him as though she hadn't even noticed he was there.

"Oh, hi, would you like to sign up for the drama club?" she sounded tired now, this wasn't the bullying spiel she had been giving earlier.

"Well, maybe, I heard that my new friend Krillin here usually signs up but he probably wasn't going to this year. Do you think I should?"

Suddenly, and for no reason Goku could determine, Chichi burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing.

"Eesh, Chichi." Krillin cringed and patted the crying girl on the shoulder. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head, black hair falling down to obscure her face. "It's – it's just I worked so hard and now I'm probably going to captain the society, but with the sign-ups I've got it's going to be the worst year the club's ever had." She waved a clipboard in Krillin's face and he took it out of her hands.

Looking over the list of names he sighed. There were very few returning names from the upper or lower sixth. Most of them seemed to be new sixes, or kids from the fifth and remove. She had even signed up a few lower sixth formers Krillin knew were not the type and must have been bullied into it. "Well, it's not like you have to stop taking names now, Chichi. People will sign up over the next week if they like the sound of what the society will be doing this year and want to switch out their other activities. You know that."

"But everyone already knows what I've got planned if I captain the society!" Chichi wailed. "I've had it planned out since the beginning of last year."

Krillin couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't directly insult her direction for her beloved dramatic society and thereby incur her most terrifying wrath. "Alright, alright. Put me down, just turn off the waterworks, okay?"

As abruptly as the tears had begun they had finished, and Chichi was jotting something down on her clipboard, looking suddenly clear-eyed and content. Krillin and Goku turned and walked away.

"How do you guys know she's the captain anyway? School just started."

Krillin shook his head. "We don't really. Yesterday morning everyone returning in sixth form voted for leaders in any societies they were a part of last year, but they haven't been tallied yet. Most of the upper sixth don't want to take on the responsibility along with the academic load, so they opt out, and the teachers can veto anyone they think isn't appropriate, so the captains are usually pretty much a foregone conclusion. Chichi is crazy, but she works hard at the dramatic society and is a natural at organising other people, so she's expected to take the chair if the previous captain opts out, and I think he has." He looked down at his watch. "We've got some free time now, before an assembly. If we sit on that landing we'll be able to see everyone go by, and I'll tell you their names and vices."

It was an informative way to pass the time, even if Krillin's assessments tended to be on the scathing side, and occasionally included jokes Goku didn't get. Once he got used to the constant jibes, Goku began to realise that they weren't as bitter or malicious as they had first seemed. There was an air of gentle self-mockery about Krillin that made his jabs at others easier to swallow, and the fact that he lampooned his friend Oolong without any more mercy than he showed the rest of the student body told Goku that the bald boy didn't really mean to imply that nobody at Orange Star College was worth befriending.

It just might be a little bit of a tricky task in some cases.

* * *

I can imagine Vegeta as an aspiring ruthless lawyer somehow.

Comments, slurs against my mother etc. all welcome, please and thank you.

Next time: Vegeta is a baby fox murderer. Some other things. I guess you will find out then, if you read the next chapter???


	3. Chapter 3: A Band Of Wild Badgers

Thank you for the reviews, GokuBootz, Lon Wolfgood and catgirl26 (I confess I spent probably too much time choosing surnames for everyone). I would accuse you of giving me a big head, but I think I already have that covered XD. Thank you also to anyone who is reading but not reviewing, I hope you enjoy the story.

Okay I lied last time v_v the fox murderer thing isn't in here. I deleted about 6,000 words of slush that originally came before this point.

**Chapter Three: A Band Of Wild Badgers**

"What's wrong?" Goku whispered, leaning over so far he nearly fell out of his chair.

"Piss off, Goku." Krillin hissed. "I'm trying to do my prep."

"What's wrong, though? I didn't even see you at dinner at all." Some of the other students were giving him dirty looks and he was amazed at how disciplined and serious they were. The first night, prep had been presided over by the housemasters for both the senior boys' and girls' residential houses, Roshi and Baba respectively. Roshi had spent most of the time patrolling near the girls with the largest chests, trying to look down their tops. Since then, however, the prefects had been responsible for keeping the peace on their own, at the same time as doing their own work. Despite the lack of anyone ready to enforce punishment for misbehaviour, the lower sixth was quiet and studious. It was weird.

"Goku just shut up. I'll talk to you after."

Spurned, Goku returned to his work sulkily. He didn't lose a moment after they were excused before accosting Krillin on his way to the common room.

"So. What's up?"

Krillin sighed, and ran a hand over his smooth scalp. "Basically, I'm a dead man."

"Why? Is there something I can do?"

"No, no. You remember I was telling you about Chichi and the drama society, right?" Goku nodded. It had been a couple of hectic days ago, but Chichi was so far the only person to burst into convulsive sobbing in front of Goku since his arrival. It was memorable. "Well, Pixie—you don't know her—finished counting the votes so we had a meeting at elevenses today to announce the captain." Goku was getting bored with this story, but he did his best to look wide-eyed and alert. The result was a touch crazed, but Krillin didn't notice. "So, long story short, The Chairman isn't chairing."

"That's a good thing, though, right? Because you don't like her?"

"Looks like a lot of people don't like her, because somehow _I've_ ended up with the job."

"Hey, congratulations. That's good news." Goku thought he'd rather be eaten alive by scorpions, if that was an actual thing scorpions did to a person, than captain a dramatic society, but apparently theatre was fun for Krillin. Goku supposed Krillin was probably hoping to meet a lot of aspiring actresses. Like how Oolong took art, but with less groping.

"Not really. Even if Mao wasn't going to slaughter me at the first opportunity, I just don't want to captain the society. I'm happier just helping out, you know? I'm not a born leader, or at least not a born organiser. It's tedious."

"So step down. I'm sure Chichi had the next most votes."

"No can do." Krillin shook his head. "If I step down now, she'll think I did it out of fear for her and she'll also think I'm disdaining the position she's coveted for so long. My life is hell whether I captain or not."

Goku sighed. "Maybe you should just talk to her about it. I'm sure she can't be as bad as all that. You'll be able to work something out." It seemed simple to him. Chichi wanted to be captain, Krillin didn't want to be captain. Solution? Chichi be captain, Krillin not be captain. Easy.

"Ever the optimist, Goku. Would that I had your way of looking at things."

They stayed in the common room for an hour, watching TV, but at eleven Krillin looked at the clock and explained that he ought to get working, now that he was a society captain, and had headed off to his room. Goku didn't know any of the boys left in the room and, while he could have made some new friends, it seemed easier to work on the one he was already trying to cultivate. He headed back to his room.

Vegeta wasn't there, which was strange. The only two places to go and relax at this hour, as far as Goku knew, were the common room or your bedroom, and he wasn't in either. On the other hand, Goku hadn't ever really seen Vegeta relax, so he was probably just studying feverishly in one of the libraries. Goku considered trying to find him, then considered snooping around. Snooping seemed like the best option, especially when Vegeta's laptop was sitting, closed, on his unbearably neat desk. It was a temptation Goku couldn't resist. It was definitely the right thing to do. He sat down in Vegeta's chair and flipped open the computer, disappointed to discover it had a password on it. He closed it again and started rifling through the drawers instead.

He was interrupted by the sound of the doorknob turning. Goku flew out of the seat and attempted to affect a nonchalant pose, leaning against the wall and whistling tunelessly.

"What happened here?"

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Goku asked in a too-high voice. "I have just been leaning against the wall and whistling a merry tune, which is what I always do in my free time as I'm sure you would know if you had known me for more these past few days, which surely constitute the longest period of my life in which I have not engaged in my favourite pastime of leaning against a wall and whistling a merry tune."

"No, Kakarrot, what happened _here_." Vegeta gestured irritably at his desk, which Goku just now realised he had left in a state of utter disarray, with the drawers hanging open and many of the contents strewn about the floor.

"Uhhhh." Vegeta was looking at him. He had to think fast. "Badgers!" Not fast enough.

"Badgers." Vegeta was deadpan, but didn't seem particularly angry. That was good.

"Yes, a band of wild badgers came in through the window while you were out wherever you were and they went through your drawers. I told them you would be mad, but they threatened to blow up the school if I didn't follow all their directions, because they were spying for the badger government and it was top secret and--"

"Just stop." Vegeta was massaging his temples with his forefingers and looked very harassed.

"Okay." Goku's mouth had been going faster than his brain then, anyway. He didn't know where he was going with that one. What would an hypothetical badger government want with Vegeta, anyway?

"I don't think I want to know why you were going through my possessions. Just know that if it happens again I will murder you while you sleep." He bent down and began fixing up his things. Goku didn't think help would be appreciated.

"So where were you tonight? You weren't here or in the common room."

"What I do with my time is none of your concern."

Goku sat on his bed and watched Vegeta organise his possessions according to some rules Goku suspected made sense only to Vegeta. "Were you out having fun?"

"No."

"Do you ever do anything for fun?"

Vegeta frowned. "I am a member of the mooting and debating societies, and I participate in a number of games at a competitive level."

"Those first two are just like more work generally, and working hard at games is still working hard. You just play to win, right? I want to know what you do for _fun_. C'mon. I'll tell you some of the things I do for fun?" Vegeta didn't say anything, and Goku took this as a sign to go ahead. "I like to play football when you aren't even keeping score and nobody knows who's on what team and it's all just a mess. I like to try new foods and then keep eating them even if they're totally gross to see how long it takes until you throw up. And I like going to the pictures if there's explosions or ninjas in the film, especially if there's nobody but you and your friends in the cinema and you can talk all the way through, and I always used to like going to hang out in the pub with my friends in town even though they wouldn't give us anything to drink, just because that's where all our older brothers and cousins used to be and it seemed so cool to hang out where they did."

Vegeta crinkled his nose slightly. "I have neither the time nor the inclination to do any of those things. I'm busy. I have more important things I have to do."

"Other people manage to do school and sports and fun things, too."

"They don't perform as effectively at the things that are important. They don't achieve everything they could."

Goku knit his brow and attempted to decipher Vegeta. For all that he was allegedly a sixteen year old boy like Goku, the way he thought and the things he valued seemed completely alien to the taller boy. He leant back on his bed. "I don't know who you are trying to impress, Vegeta. You've got all this money and smarts and athletic ability that other people would kill for, and you can't even enjoy it. Lighten up."

The glare he received in reply was enough to shut even Goku up.

* * *

Goku's first weeks at his new and very different school continued as could be expected. It was becoming abundantly clear to each of his teachers that he was not up to the same standard, academically, as his peers, but so far the answer had just been to encourage him to study hard, work together with his classmates when possible and seek tuition in his free periods, as well as during the scheduled sessions.

Athletically, things were doing much better. He had been selected for the first eleven at football, and had recorded some good running times over long distances. Having decided that his room-mate was an excellent athlete, Goku was a little disappointed he wouldn't get to go head-to-head with him any time soon. Not only did he play rugby instead of football, but his preferred distances in running were different. On the other hand, he seemed like he'd hold a grudge if Goku beat him at anything, so maybe it was for the best they didn't compete until they had a more firmly established friendship.

Goku liked his time spent at games not only because he enjoyed the physical activity and was good at it, but also because it was a chance to communicate with his classmates on something a little closer to equal footing. The conversations in class always referred back to muscle fibre innervation or the invasion of 1066 or something else that Goku could understand, but not without effort. He couldn't make the same casual leaps of logic and deductive reasoning as the other students, but he was getting used to it already. He only needed to keep reminding himself that it didn't make him stupid, it just made them clever.

But when it came to games he could talk at length and with just as much understanding as anyone else regarding tactics on the football field, or the most effective methods of training and preparing for a long run, or anything else practical and applicable to sports, including the games he was just beginning to learn. He wasn't just an equal here, he was up with the best.

Saturday, then, suited Goku. It was a more regimented beginning to the weekend than he was used to, being accustomed to waking up whenever he pleased and doing whatever he wanted on a Saturday, so long as his chores were completed before the end of the weekend. Saturdays at Orange Star College, however, were not days of complete freedom. Breakfast time was the same as during the week, and although the period between breakfast and lunch was allegedly 'free', it was in practice set aside for students to participate in their societies and extra games, or study (but they would choose study only, Goku thought, if they were a bit touched in the head). They weren't allowed to leave the school grounds with special dispensation. Goku had originally thought he might be able to leave after lunch to visit his grandpa, but was mistaken. The afternoon was set aside for fixtures until about five, and if you didn't have a match on Saturday that must mean you'd had one during the week and therefore needed to catch up a practice session.

Basically, it was an assault on his weekend freedom, but in a pleasantly athletic way.

Goku was setting aside Saturday mornings for learning tennis. He had called home upon finding out that the school had no racquets to loan out, and had been in class the following day when an outlandish car had crunched into the circular gravel drive beneath the window and Goku's father, recognisable by his hair if nothing else, had gotten out. Spotting Goku's face peering out the window, he proceeded boldly to walk through the main building until he found the right classroom. He had marched right in and waltzed past the teacher to hand Goku a wrapped tennis racquet and wish him good luck with 'all of this stuff, then'.

Everyone had stared, and Goku's ears had been bright red with embarrassment.

"Wow, so freshly minted you can smell it," one boy had said, staring straight at Goku. "Worse than the scholarships." He had laughed, then, and run his hand through his fair hair, and Goku had given up on the tentative acquaintance he had made with him.

Worse, though, was the way Chichi Mao had kept staring at him after her friend had forgotten his joke and gotten back to work. She had a very insistent way of looking at a person. It was uncomfortable.

Chichi was a tennis player. It seemed as though everyone was, at least casually on Saturdays. The uniform wasn't required on weekends, so the courts in the mornings were a dazzling array of expensive tennis kit of all kinds. Goku was already starting to learn some of the nuances of the school culture, and he could spot the difference between the old money traditionalists and everyone else here simply by what they wore. Everyone's kit was expensive (Goku felt silly for wearing his regular clothes, but the idea that money was precious and limited was so ingrained in his upbringing he couldn't bring himself to ask his parents for special tennis clothes) but where most people were clad in colourful, stylish brand-name athletic wear, the old guard wore strictly Wimbledon white.

On this particular Saturday, Goku could see Vegeta and Tarble talking to one another on a court. Both, of course, were in white. Goku had never seen the two brothers manage to find themselves in any sort of vague proximity to one another without becoming a self-contained bubble that didn't encourage visitors. He wasn't sure yet whether it was due more to Vegeta's overzealous 'protection' of Tarble, which seemed to consist mostly of not letting him talk to anyone at all, or the younger boy's overzealous clinging admiration of his big brother. Goku suspected it was a little of both. They fed off one another.

"What are you looking at?" Bulma Briefs finished adjusting her flouncy skirt and tried to follow Goku's line of sight. She had accosted Goku on the first day he'd ventured near the tennis courts, wheedling him into making up four for doubles with some of her friends. Goku had been flattered at the time, but had later realised he was probably a last resort. Not many people were game to play with Bulma, who was not above throwing violent tantrums in the face of a line call she disagreed with. Goku's willingness to bend all close calls in her favour had made him a regular part of the foursome, which otherwise varied depending upon whether Bulma and her boyfriend, Yamcha, were 'on' or 'off'.

"Oh, just Vegeta and Tarble. I don't normally see Vegeta playing anything for fun."

Bulma scowled. "I'm sure you won't today, either. The only thing Vegeta does for fun is terrorise people. He'll be coaching Tarble, because the little guy is anything but naturally athletic. Waste of time."

Goku smiled. "I didn't know you knew Vegeta. He's my room-mate."

"Goku, the school isn't big enough for me not to know someone in my own form, let alone someone I share a class with. Believe me, I do my best not to."

Although she didn't know it, Bulma had accidentally made herself a prime target for Goku's friend-gathering mission. He already considered her and Vegeta to be among his friends, so it was paramount that they also become friends with one another. Goku had never not been a part of a circle of friends who supported each other and did things together. For Goku's tentative friendships to be so scattered was a thing unacceptable. He was already working on getting Yamcha and Bulma to accept Krillin. He would leave Oolong for later. Oolong was a special case.

"Oh, he's not so bad." Goku tried to sound casual. "You just have to get to know him."

Bulma looked at him as though he were insane. "Goku, I have known that boy since I was eleven. You met him a few weeks ago. You think _I'm_ the one who needs to get to know him?"

Goku was pleased when a familiar voice interrupted Bulma before her speech could get off the ground. "Hey Goku, Bulma." Bulma opened her mouth, probably to protest the fact that Yamcha had put Goku's name before hers, but he slung an arm casually around her waist and she seemed to decide there'd be more fun in staring dopily at him.

"You guys ready to play? I brought Maron for the fourth."

Maron waved. Krillin had once told Goku that this was an ex-girlfriend of his. Goku found it hard to believe that a girl like that would ever go out with his small bald friend, however funny and personable he might be at times. She was a classic beauty with long, slim legs and cleavage that seemed to overflow out of anything she wore. Goku had first thought she might be related to Bulma, due to the blue hair, but when seen together they looked so different it seemed silly to have ever thought they were alike. Next to Maron, Bulma looked small, pale and round-faced.

She might have been good-looking, but Maron was a truly terrible tennis player. Anything she got a racquet on went out, or straight into the net, and it clearly drove Bulma crazy that she had suggested playing 'boys vs. girls'. She wasn't a gracious loser.

About half an hour into play, Yamcha stepped back and let a shot of Bulma's go out. "Out!" he called, and settled in to continue playing. Bulma had other plans.

"Out? Out, Yamcha? Is that really what you meant to say?" He had sighed and answered in the affirmative and readied himself for an onslaught. "That was a great shot, Yamcha. I understand you don't want to lose this game, but it is both unfair and unethical to resort to cheating. Now, are you going to call the ball in?" Her voice was smooth and calm, with just a hint of the storm underneath the surface.

When Yamcha shook his head, the storm broke loose.

"Well, you can just go to hell, then!" She slammed her racquet down on the ground. Goku wondered how it took all the abuse she doled out to it, a sentiment he could probably apply to any person she had even a passing acquaintance with. "I don't know why I invited you back into my tennis group, and I certainly don't know why I agreed to go out with you again. Find someone else to go out with tomorrow, because I am just done with you! Done!"

She picked up the racquet and stalked off the court, pausing once to turn around and shout "I hate you!" Maron wavered for a little while, then mumbled an apology and loped off after her.

Yamcha shoved his free hand in a pocket and smiled ruefully. "By Wednesday, she'll have forgotten why she was angry and I'll have forgotten why I was glad to see her go." Goku felt awkward. These fights were a regular occurrence and he wished the couple would just choose either 'on' or 'off', permanently. It didn't matter which.

They traded shots lazily for a while, then retired to the shade of the nearby woods, letting someone else take their court.

"You know," Yamcha started, after a period of silence. "There are some rumours going around about you."

"There are?" Goku was caught between excitement and anxiety. On one hand, it was nice that people were taking the time to talk about him. On the other hand, it could be an awful rumour. There were plenty of rumours going around around, from the inventive rumours Krillin liked to spread about the origins of Yamcha's facial scars ("he was a professional crocodile fighter until the age of ten; scars come with the trade.", "a bear, a cucumber, a bottle of lube. You can figure it out from there.") to downright nasty rumours about what Yamcha's parents did for a living ("dirty money, say no more.", "pornography.", "drugs.", "crocodile fighting."). Goku had never believed any of those rumours, assuming the form just needed _someone_ to be the butt of all the rumours, and Yamcha had fallen into that position at an early point.

Nonetheless, he wouldn't like for something like that to be the first thing people associated with his name.

"Yeah. I know you won't take it personally from me, since you've probably heard all the rumours about _my_ parents already, but people are saying there's something a bit funny about you coming into all that money all at once."

Goku was horrified. People were saying those things about his family. He forced himself to laugh lightly. "That's crazy. My parents were out of my life four fourteen years until recently, so it seems sudden for me, but they've been working for it for a long time."

"Just thought you might like to know."

They sat in silence for a moment, then Goku excused himself. He needed to call his grandpa and ask him, again, where the money had come from.

* * *

Having deleted roughly two chapters worth of stuff, my buffer is a little less significant now and updates will probably be a bit slower from here, sorry! Maybe more like one a week.

Any reviews, comments, criticisms, random things you might feel like saying through the review submission process are welcome.


	4. Chapter 4: A Good Death

Thank you to the reviewers: Lon Wolfgood (boarding school isn't so bad, once you get used to it. Definitely a culture shock, though), sisi123456123456, UltimateGohan42 and catgirl26

So, I re-installed my OS and forgot to back up the 'in progress' file for this, because I am so super smart. Hopefully I can build up a buffer chapter or two as I go.

**Chapter Four: A Good Death**

This was it. She had to do it before half term rolled around in a couple of weeks, or her holiday would be consumed by it. Chichi was going to quit the dramatic society, which she had been a member of for two years now, for which she had eagerly signed up to be an extra each one of her first three years at Orange Star College. If the other members couldn't appreciate that kind of dedication, then they weren't the kind of people Chichi could stand to work with.

The petite girl paced in front of the small student theatre building. It was late afternoon, the Thursday of week five. The club had just dispersed from a meeting, the members wandering off to their final class for the day, but Krillin was still inside and Chichi was waiting for him.

His surprise was writ large on his face when he saw her standing outside the doors, radiating pent up anger. "Krillin," she greeted him curtly. He returned a more cautious hello. Chichi pressed her palms flat against the front of her thighs, and Krillin darted nervous looks around the area. He obviously didn't want to be here. Well, good. She wasn't comfortable either.

"Krillin, we need to talk about the society." Chichi tried to look more casual, but she wasn't a naturally casual girl. "I'm sure you're doing a fine job leading the society," this was a lie. Chichi had been planning her direction for this year over the holidays, down to her preferred castings in the production she'd already decided they would be putting on. Objectively, Krillin _was_ doing an acceptable job, but to Chichi it seemed as though every decision he made was just wrong, wrong, wrong.

"Thanks, Chichi. I didn't expect to hear that from you. I know you expected to be chairing this year, I sure thought you would be, and I really appreciate your--"

"No." She cut him off. "That's the problem. I'm not appreciated here. I'm quitting."

Krillin opened his mouth to speak, but she was already darting across the grass to her next lesson. He sighed instead, and rubbed his forehead. For the entire term so far, Krillin had been attempting to dance around Chichi's rigid vision for the club this year, and her tendency to burst into great gulping sobs when she didn't get her way. She was, after all, an asset. She knew things about administrating the society that Krillin had never even thought about before his surprise election, and she was a better actress than many of the girls who joined.

On the other hand, he mused while looking for a free computer lab in which to spend this spare period, she had a tendency to scare the new members. Even before she'd been in a position to expect some authority, more than one extra from the lower school had dropped out due to Chichi's bossiness. It would be a lot easier to keep those kids around. And she had been sitting through each meeting so sulkily she was like a dark cloud casting a shadow over everyone else present. He'd tried complaining about her to Goku and Oolong, but Goku would invariably chime in with "oh, I'm sure she's not so bad! You must be able to think of some good things about her." and _of course_ there were good points. Krillin could think of something good about everyone he knew, however vile, but the good had to outweigh the bad before you could consider a person worthwhile or likeable. You shouldn't have to work to find the good in your friends.

Finally, Krillin peered into a computer lab that was completely empty. He had some leaflets to type up for the society members, and would need to write an outline of their production plans to give to the drama master. The small boy began diligently typing, but had been at it for only a few minutes before he heard the door open behind him. He winced, but kept typing. A moment later, someone took up residence at a computer in the same row as Krillin's, only a couple of places over.

"Great," he muttered to himself, under his breath. "Couldn't possibly sit somewhere else, of course. No sense of personal space."

"No," replied the interloper. She had a cool, dark voice and Krillin was struck by the feeling that he had just insulted the girl who had been starring in his dreams for the past five months. A quick sidelong glance confirmed this feeling. Krillin wanted to die. "If I sit with my back to the windows at this time of day, the sunset will make the monitor difficult to work at."

"Oh, ahh, uh, heh. You... weren't really meant to hear that," Krillin laughed nervously, and cursed his fumbling tongue as it failed to roll out something smooth and funny that would assure 18 this was a smart, witty guy who was fun to be around.

"Whatever." She always spoke without decipherable inflection to her voice. It fascinated Krillin. He had gone to more than one student debate just to listen to the way she talked, and he still couldn't find an explanation or metaphor that suited her. The one he had been entertaining for the past few weeks was that her voice was like a deep, black well—cool, inviting, mysterious but also forbidding, with no clues as to what was below the surface. That didn't quite fit, any more than his previous attempts had. He felt like a buffoon whenever he tried to interpret her.

"So, um." He wasn't sure what was happening. His mouth was moving on its own. 18 looked at him out of the corner of her long, tapered eyes. Strange eyes, but nice to look at. "What do you think of, uh..." His tongue had already started the sentence, so now Krillin's mind raced to find a word to finish it, something she was interested in. "...history? In general, I guess?"

Great. That was great. Take a bow, master conversationalist Krillin Chastain. Now would be a good time to kill himself, Krillin thought. He could wrap a power cord around his neck and leap out one of the windows. How was it he could make witty repartee about William of Normandy in class—a class they both shared—but he couldn't even form one single vaguely interesting sentence when it actually felt important?

She arched one eyebrow and stared at him mutely, as though she was trying to kill him with her thoughts, or shoot lasers at him from her frighteningly intense eyes. It would be a good death.

"Sorry, it's just that I've been going to school with you for five years now, and I really don't know you at all."

"You don't really know anyone at all. People let you see what they want you to see, and you're a fool if you think you have some special insight on anyone."

She turned to her typing, and Krillin flushed red. He'd never been quite so firmly rebuffed as that. It wasn't more than fifteen minutes before he could no longer sit and pretend he wasn't watching her long fingers fly over the keyboard. He saved his work and, mumbling something about research, flew to the relative safety of the humanities library.

* * *

Goku's eyes fluttered open reluctantly. The room was mostly dark, save for a bothersome glow coming from the vicinity of Vegeta's desk. He groaned and rolled onto his side to face the wall. For the first week of school, Goku had been pleased as punch to have Vegeta as a room-mate. He was quiet if Goku didn't actively seek out conversation, but spoke to him when he did. He was full of useful morsels of information regarding their fellow students, and Goku had discovered that while Vegeta wouldn't sit and help Goku with his work, either in prep or in private, the way Krillin was willing to, if Goku asked an question and Vegeta knew the answer, he'd provide it. He nearly always knew the answer. He wouldn't elaborate or explain if Goku didn't fully understand, but those more mysterious answers always led Goku down a useful path of research.

Things had started going downhill in week two. By now, Vegeta was constantly snippy and tired and downright _cruel_. That was on the rare occasions he was in the same room long enough to talk to. He would disappear during the free time they had before bed, or on the weekends, and then Goku would wake up to the sound of furious typing or scribbling and the glow of a lamp at two or three in the morning.

It was driving Goku mad.

"Vegeta." He sat up and looked at the other boy, who was sitting at his desk dressed in nothing but a pair of pyjama pants and an air of furious determination. "What is this about? I'm going crazy waking up to this every night."

The other boy blinked. "I was not aware you were being woken. If you are a light sleeper I can take my work to the common room."

"Ugh." Goku rubbed his eyes with a fist. "That's not the only thing. You're always tired and snippy, and I know you have more work than me, but there's no way it takes you more time to do your prep for five subjects than it takes me to do it for four. And you won't even tell me what you're doing in your evening free time. Are you like this every year? Did your previous room mates have a tendency to leap out windows to their deaths? Because I am kind of considering it."

"You can't be the best if you're only doing what's required of you and nothing more. I train in the evenings."

"You train? For games? You're taking running and... and rugby or whatever, that seriously?" Vegeta nodded, and Goku could see he was completely set on this path. He genuinely intended to spend the whole year driving himself into the ground with as little human interaction as possible. "Vegeta, putting aside the fact that I am pretty sure you could be the best at whatever it is you enjoy, if you actually enjoy anything, without doing all this extra work, you can't really think that working so hard and stressing so much that even I, who have only known you for a month, can see you aren't yourself... you can't really think that's helping you be better at anything except, I don't know, 'crankiest morning person ever'."

Vegeta just stared at him, as though he didn't quite understand and was still trying to divine Goku's meaning. What Goku didn't understand was how someone could grow up with everything handed to them, facing the prospect of unlimited opportunity even if they completely stuffed up this stage of their lives, and still think they had to work themselves to death to be 'the best', whatever that meant.

"Just go to bed, okay?" Vegeta didn't answer, but he closed his computer and put the textbook back on its shelf. Goku lay back down. "Aren't you basically the top of everything anyway?"

"Briefs is the top of mathematics." This obviously pained him, and Goku smiled thoughtfully. Vegeta probably wouldn't mind not being number one in that single subject if he and Bulma were friends. And Goku had come up with his friendship plan before he even knew about this schoolroom competitiveness! He was smarter than anyone gave him credit for, obviously.

"Well, I bet Bulma gets a good night's sleep every night."

"Shut up."

Goku shut his eyes and rolled over to face the wall again, but even after he heard Vegeta's breath steady and slow as he drifted off, Goku still couldn't find sleep. He sighed. His mind was back racing on the topic of his old friends, and they were well and truly 'old friends' by now.

He had realised they weren't the friends he valued most quite abruptly, when he'd cycled in to town last Sunday to see them, as he had the other Sundays prior. They'd been sitting on the window ledge outside the post office, all five of them. Li-ping, a girl Goku had dated briefly when they were fourteen, had been reading a magazine.

"It says here that Bulma Briefs goes to Orange Star College." Goku had nodded and fastened the lock on his bike. He never would have bothered before, but this was a new bike, an expensive one that somebody might actually steal.

"Sure," he'd told the group. "She's one of the smartest, even there. Taking five subjects. She's so terrible at games, though. I play tennis with her sometimes."

Li-ping's jaw had dropped, and it wasn't the only one. "Look here," Britta, another friend, had snatched the magazine from Li-ping's hands and held it out so Goku could see. "She's sitting in a café in West Capital with a famous musician's daughter, wearing Balmain and drinking coffee. Who throws on a Balmain jacket to go have coffee? She's going to be the next 'It girl', you know. What could you possibly talk about with her?"

Goku had taken the magazine to look at the picture. He didn't recognise the other girl, but he supposed he wasn't the sort of person who would recognise an 'It girl'. "Hey, you see those glasses?" He turned the magazine around so they could look at Bulma's favourite sunglasses. "Those sparkles down the side spell out her name, and they're actual diamonds. Pretty neat, huh?" His friends had looked more horrified than intrigued, and although he could remember that only a few weeks ago he had been shocked by the excess, it seemed so everyday now. Eventually, Britta broke the silence.

"Can you get her to read my blog?"

They didn't want to do any of the things Goku had always loved doing with his friends. To them, he was now a source of exciting stories about It girls and girls who lived in castles, and real life earls ("Is the one that's going to be a duke single?" Britta had asked). Even his male friends only wanted to know if it was true that this famous actor's son attended, or that famous footballer was an old boy. He couldn't talk to them about his hopes or fears or opinions any more, the way he could with Krillin and Oolong, or even Vegeta or Bulma if they were in a good mood.

They weren't the friends that mattered to him any more. They had changed, and so had he.

* * *

It was the Tuesday of week six, half term fast approaching, and Goku was feeling very full of his success after being able to pipe up with a relevant statistic nobody else had mentioned in Home Economics, noting the surprise on the teacher's face that he had spoken at all. It was therefore without concern that he received a message to visit the headmaster, delivered by a fat-faced first former wearing an enormous jade ring on one hand. She was probably on delivery duty during lunch hours for just that uniform infraction, but it hadn't stopped her.

He knocked on the heavy wooden door, a little golden plaque indicating the room beyond held 'Headmaster Lehrer', and was invited promptly inside. Goku had been here only once before, and it still surprised him. Like something out of a period drama, he thought, all dark wood and heavy rugs.

The headmaster himself was a friendly-looking man with fair, thinning hair and a tanned, lined face. It was the type of face that defied age. He could be a sun-weathered forty or a well-preserved sixty. Already Goku's eye was discerning enough to peg him as a boatman; probably rowing in his youth and sailing now. Likely an Orange Star old boy himself.

"Sit down, Kakarrot." He indicated the chairs in front of his desk, and Goku took one. The headmaster sifted through some papers on his blotter and allowed himself a small sigh. "Kakarrot, do you know why I've asked you up here today?"

Goku shook his head. "No, sir." Perhaps because of his steadily improving classroom performance? Perhaps because of his excellent people skills that had allowed him to get almost his entire form onside within the first half of his first term at the school? Goku could easily name every person in the form whom he felt carried some animosity towards him, and he intended to make them friendly acquaintances too, as soon as Project: Friendship Circle was a success.

"Well, I'll get straight to it, shall I? We're concerned about how you're holding up in class." Goku frowned. "Your teachers have been expressing a bit of worry about you for a while now, and I've got some examples of your preparation work here and I can see why. We thought at first you were having some trouble with the new environment, but you've had some time now and you seem to be settling into a standard well below the norm. I understand you may not have had the opportunity to stretch yourself at your previous school and don't have the same prior learning as your classmates, but that doesn't explain the disparity between the marks on which you were offered a place here and your performance so far."

Goku didn't know what to say. He had thought they would discover there'd been some mistake as soon as he started classes, and when they hadn't said anything he'd just forgotten about it, assumed it was in the past or they didn't care. He'd let himself become invested in this school and his tenuous new friendships and, yes, in this life where he had so much money he could never spend it all and wore uniforms with obscenely expensive woollen blazers and stupid, ugly hats that cost more than any human being should ever spend on a hat.

"I..." What could he say but the truth? He wasn't a convincing liar, and he wasn't creative to come up with something to say, anyway. "I think there's been a mistake." His mouth felt dry, even though the headmaster was looking at him with such kind eyes. "I never understood how I was accepted. I thought maybe you were making some allowances because I am a good sportsman or something. My marks were pretty good for year eleven, I thought, but not like what the kids here could do."

"Kakarrot, the material we received was quite exceptional."

"Okay, sure, but it wasn't mine then. I'm not exceptional at school stuff. I'm trying really hard, though."

Mr. Lehrer frowned and leant back in his leather chair. After a short while, he began flipping through one of the folders on his blotter, and withdrew some papers. He placed them in front of Goku, who flicked through them obediently.

The first few were sixth form placement examinations, each one reading 'Kakarrot Son' in a fair approximation of his own handwriting, and further detailing maths exams with neat rows of ticks down the side, or essays in that same almost-his handwriting, but containing words Goku didn't even understand. The last few sheets appeared to be an academic record. A logo at the top of each page read 'Eternal Dragon English Language School', followed by a word that Goku vaguely recognised as a continental country, but could never hope to spell, pronounce or locate on any map. This school, however, purported to be the educational facility previously attended by 'Kakarrot Son', and offered up records of immaculate grades and glowing commentaries from teachers.

The first thing that occurred to him was that this was all wrong, and Headmaster Lehrer should know. He hadn't done those tests, he hadn't gotten those grades and he certainly hadn't gone to school in some far-off country. The second thing that occurred to him was that he shouldn't say anything. He was gripped by a very sudden and intense feeling that there were people he needed to consult before he admitted these weren't his records. This was no clerical error.

"Er, well, yes, I suppose they are rather good aren't they?" The headmaster was looking at him expectantly. Goku laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. "I guess that, ah, the teaching methods here are a little different from over in, um..." he mumbled something unintelligible, which seemed to satisfy the headmaster. Probably couldn't pronounce that funny country himself, Goku thought.

"We'll talk further in a few weeks, after the break, and of course I'll also be talking to your parents. We want you to achieve all you are capable of, Kakarrot, remember that."

"Right. Sure."

Goku would not tell anybody about this meeting. He would wait. He would talk to his grandfather and Raditz, and then he would talk to his parents.

* * *

It is sometimes difficult to know where to cut off the chapters, I think. I wanted to include the next scene I'd written in this chapter, but I am trying to keep them all roughly equal in length. Oh well :/

In the next chapter, half-term rolls around and Goku lays some seeds for Project: Friendship Circle, investigates further this whole Kakarrot dealy etc. etc.

Reviews of all kinds welcome, please and thank you!


	5. Chapter 5: An Iconic Face

Oh goodness, my apologies for the ridiculous lag in updates. I won't go in to details, but suffice to say 'real life' things have been taking up all of my free time, much to my dismay. Thank you to Lon Wolfgood and catgirl26 for the reviews on chapter four. Hopefully someone will still read this chapter, even after all this time haha.

Last chapter was the start of a broader focus on the ensemble cast, where we pulled away from Goku's perspective briefly to Chichi and Krillin, and this continues here with some Vegeta and Bulma.

**Chapter Five: An Iconic Face**

It was half term. This seemed to be an occasion on which all the students' parents descended en masse to the lawn and consumed small fingers of sandwiches. The sandwiches Goku had sampled consisted of three pieces of thin white bread surrounding either thinly sliced cucumber or watercress, neither of which were fillings substantial- or delicious-enough to warrant three pieces of bread.

This also seemed to be an occasion on which all students would pretend to be overjoyed at the sight of their parents and spend roughly fifteen minutes being incredibly solicitous before ninety percent of the student body retreated to the company of their peers. The remaining ten percent needled their parents constantly about upcoming holidays or unreasonable spending allowances.

Goku tried his luck with an eighth sandwich—eventually they had to get better—while Oolong related a dirty joke to an appreciative Krillin and slightly less appreciative trio of girls. Bulma, in particular, took on an outraged aspect Goku was learning to associate with increased aptitude for violence.

Krillin laughed. "Man, Bulma, sometimes you are such a prude." It might have seemed a strange comment to direct at a girl in a dress that was only nominally clothing, but her friends tittered in a way that suggested they agreed, but would never say it out loud. "Poor Yamcha, right, sometimes I wonder if you two have even shagged. Ever."

He and Oolong laughed, then moved on to the next joke, but Bulma's face grew even redder. Her eye twitched.

"Of _course_ I've had sex, you disgusting little idiots!" The idiots in question blinked uncomprehendingly.

"What? Are you still talking about that?" They shrugged. She fumed.

"How could you even _think _that I hadn't? Look at me; I'm crazy sexy. What guy could resist a body like this?" She struck a pose. Her friends stepped backwards.

"Well," Goku began, throwing his sandwich on the grass. He could almost imagine he heard a 'click' as his brain officially disconnected from his mouth. "The other week Vegeta said he 'wouldn't poke you with a ten foot pole, or any other equipment to hand'."

Her mouth opened and closed.

"I remember because I thought it was pretty funny. 'Equipment to hand'. Who talks like that? Haha."

Bulma was vibrating with anger. Goku thought at any moment she might go the way of a cartoon. Her head would pop off like a champagne cork and her body would fly around the room deflating like a balloon.

"What?" she shrieked. "What?"

If Goku could have made his brain and mouth work in rare tandem he would have begged Bulma to believe he had ultra-rare 'Saying Things That Will Make Girls Angry Tourette's Syndrome' (actually not that rare). This was an unusual occasion. Making his mouth work, it soon became clear, could only make things worse. Right now, her anger wasn't directed at him.

"He seriously thinks he could get anywhere with me if he wanted? That little dwarf!"

"He's the same height as you, I think." Goku contributed. Bulma narrowed her eyes.

"Exactly," she snarled. The tall boy scratched his head. Okay then.

"And, what, like he thinks he could _resist_ me if I turned on the charm? There is no man who can resist Bulma Briefs." She hesitated. "Except maybe the gay ones, and even then if anyone could turn them it would be me. But the point is, Vegeta König has no defence against me."

Her eyes narrowed.

"And I am going to _prove it_." She slapped a fist into the palm of her other hand and walked off with a strange light in he eyes. Oolong sipped his lemonade.

"Total virgin."

* * *

Goku's parents hadn't turned up. On one level he was relieved. It didn't do to have parents behaving inappropriately at half term. Krillin had neglected to give his parents the event details until it was much too late for them to attend, in order to avoid embarrassment, and they weren't even socially inept; they were just plumbers. Oolong was being dragged around by his parents now. They were short, round, pink-faced people like their son. It was obvious to any observer that they were keen school contributors and eager to please the other parents, and equally as obvious that a good number of the other parents were having a laugh behind their back.

"He's probably so obnoxious just so he can have a reason to point at for his lack of social success."

Goku blinked down at Yamcha. To be honest, he thought of Yamcha as a fellow who played tennis with pretty girls, and not much more. Meeting so many people at once, he had started automatically categorising them according to how important he felt them to be, despite his noble ambition of being equal friends with all. It was always a bit of a surprise when someone you had relegated to 'good serve, Bulma's boyfriend' reminded you they were an actual person. And at this school, they tended to remind one that they were an actual person who was more insightful and intellectual than oneself.

"He's not so bad," Goku ventured. "Just, you know, bawdy."

Yamcha laughed. "Bawdy, sure. He's a one man 'Carry On'."

Goku shrugged. "I've been trying to see Vegeta's parents. He and his brother are so weird I want to know what their family's like."

Yamcha scanned the crowd, then pointed out a couple. Now that Goku knew where to look, he could see Tarble attached to the woman's heel, and Vegeta sulking a little way off behind them. He was disappointed. He had expected anachronistic Victorian garments. Maybe the mother would be twirling a parasol, maybe the father eyeing people evilly through a monocle. Maybe there would be coronets.

There were none of these things. Goku made his way across the lawn, towards his targets, clutching another faulty sandwich. The mother was dressed in a suit, barking angrily into a fancy phone in some other language. The father looked as though he had expected a pheasant hunt, not drinks and nibblies. Only the very rich could afford to look that under-dressed.

Goku was about to approach them and ask why their kids were so weird when a loud cry of "Kakarrot!" prevented his death by contemptuous glare.

He cringed and turned, expecting his parents to envelope him in hugs of too much expensive cologne and too many feathers. Instead, he was faced with his brother. Goku's face lit up. He was wrong. It wasn't just the rich who could look under-dressed. Anyone who didn't care could do it, and Raditz was the poster boy for not caring.

Both their faces split into broad grins, and Goku decided Project: Friendship Circle and Orange Star College could wait for now.

"The parents aren't coming," Raditz explained, once Goku had shown him a more secluded place they could talk, without going too far from the hoi polloi. They sat in the circle of patchy shade beneath a bare-limbed tree.

"I figured."

Raditz's jaw worked nervously and Goku wondered how long it had been since he'd seen that nervous habit. It had been a long time since he had any contact with his brother more personal than a phone call, even before coming to school here. That had been less than two months ago, but it felt like forever.

"They got some call from the school." Goku just watched his jaw work. Raditz was much older than him. When he had been a small boy, he had often if his parents had only wanted Raditz and the surprise of a second child so many years later had been the impetus for leaving. Later he had decided they were dead, because nobody would tell him either way and it was certainly easier than thinking it was his fault. Now that they were so emphatically not dead, old insecurities had bubbled to the surface. He was glad he didn't have to see them all the time, because he could pretend this lifestyle change was just some random magical blessing and he didn't have to think hard about his family.

"You know it's serious if they told me. School reckons you might not be a suitable candidate after all." He grinned, lopsided. "Hell, for all I know you've been raising Cain here on purpose, looking for an out. School wants them to talk to you, though, see if you want to see the term out. Happy to have you for now, but you'll be on your arse if your work doesn't pick up."

Goku drew his knees up under his chin and watched the people on the lawn. He didn't know how to pick up his work. He was already trying hard.

"All a bit toffee."

Radditz grinned again, more tersely. He was obviously trying to cheer his brother to the idea that this place might not be his much longer. Goku was thinking unproductively. He couldn't right now make his thoughts separate into discrete, manageable portions that might help him figure out what to do. The older Son sighed. "People are starting to peel off. Do you need a lift home?"

Goku shook his head. "My friend's going to be catching the coach. I'll wait to see him off and ride my bike in." A hand tousled his pre-tousled hair.

"All a bit toffee for us."

* * *

It was growing dark by the time the coach began to load up luggage for the pupils who would ride it to the train station, and then the train into the capital or wherever to meet their families. Goku was helping Krillin make sure all his necessities were packed.

"Are you okay, Goku? You haven't looked so good since lunch."

Goku vacillated. Then he confessed his academic woes. It was harder than he thought it would be. He hadn't realised how much he liked being on top of things. He was athletic and popular and of average intelligence and he was kind, and people had always come to him to captain a team or help settle their friendship disputes or throw a really great party. For every one of his sixteen years those had been the things that mattered and he had been important and wise in the things that mattered. Theoretically, he had no problem with asking his friends for help. In practice, in things that were important, it grated against that selfish part of him that demanded he was the leader, he was the one people looked up to.

It hurt to give up that crown of superiority by his own hand, even if it had perhaps been taken already by external forces when he had started at Orange Star. The details of the strange, mixed-up examination papers, and the school he'd never been to, he held back.

Krillin sat on his trunk and rubbed his freshly-shaved head. "Well," he started. "You'll need a definite study guide so you don't get side-tracked during prep or extra study. I guess you'll need to do lots of work outside of prep, at nights, maybe also on weekends if you're really behind." Goku gulped. "I'll help you with your history, of course, and although it pains me to even suggest this you can always take advantage of rooming with Vegeta in that subject."

"I already ask you guys things, you know. It's not like I haven't noticed I'm not as good at this stuff as everyone else."

Krillin smiled. "Yeah, we'll just need to help you out more intensely than answering the odd question. You know, I bet the Chairman would love to play bossy teacher at Home Economics. I'm sure you can get a hand there." He drifted into thought.

"Maybe Yamcha can help me with ICT and Sport Science," Goku suggested. Krillin shrugged.

"He's not a real hard worker, but I'm sure he'd help you out. Those are your best two anyway, right?" Goku nodded, and Krillin's round face split into a broad grin. "Don't worry about it, Goku. Everyone likes you. Or nobody dislikes you, anyway. In a pinch I'm sure there's nobody you couldn't ask for a hand."

He hauled the trunk into the coach's luggage compartment and moved to the front of the vehicle to board it.

"Don't let this ruin your holidays, okay?"

* * *

Goku didn't let it ruin his holidays; a whole week spent between home and hanging out in the city with Raditz, his parents nowhere to be seen, was not a thing to be wasted. He returned to his room at Orange Star College with a desk planner, a new laptop computer and a mild hangover. Vegeta returned with an increasingly evil glare, and Tarble popped in on the first day back with a rainbow bruise covering one whole side of his face.

Goku stared openly, and the younger boy gave him a small smile. Vegeta gave him a "what the fuck are you looking at?". Goku had found the edge was taken off any profanities his room-mate threw at him by the fact that the only sort of thing he could make himself expect from that accent was 'is milady putting on tea before the fox hunt? When will the servants take their own luncheon?'.

"Just wondering how your brother got his bruise. It's pretty impressive." He looked back at Tarble for an answer, but it was Vegeta who spoke.

"Rugby."

"I didn't know you played, Tarble. Thought it was just tennis and sailing for you."

Tarble shrugged. "We had cousins to stay." That was evidently all the explanation Goku was going to receive, and the two brothers took their conversation outside when it became clear the outsider was staying to set up his internet, instead of trotting off to catch up with friends.

Briefly affronted by their unwillingness to share space with him, but ever adaptable, Goku finished the task at hand and looked around for something to do. His thoughts wandered randomly about the great, unfussed plains of his mind before stumbling over the topic of the reports and examinations that had gained him entry to Orange Star. He had been trying not to dwell on the subject for an entire week and, by now, his thoughts on the matter were a tightly wound ball of worry and stress. It had been hiding in his subconscious, and Goku hadn't even realised how much this was weighing on his mind.

He googled the school. Eternal Dragon English Language School certainly looked legitimate. The website was professional, and the school's details appeared in a couple of directories that seemed fairly reliable. Goku stored the telephone number in his mobile under 'ED SCHOOL???'. There were pictures of the school, set in pristine countryside in the middle of nowhere, and of the students looking well-adjusted and happy in smart green uniforms.

It looked like exactly the sort of place a wealthy person might send their child if they lived or worked in that part of the world, so how could their records have gotten so mixed up and misused? Something prickled at the back of his brain, saying 'certainly not accidentally'. He ignored it, but called the school's number anyway.

It rang once, then launched into a recorded message. "You have reached Eternal Dragon English School," a pleasant voice informed Goku, going on to tell him briefly how great the school was. "For parent enquiries", the voice advised, "press 1. For external enquiries, press 2." He considered hanging up, but pressed two when the voice began its loop again. This time he got a busy tone, then the same voice asking him to leave a message so the school could return his call as soon as possible. He hung up.

Goku leant back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. Something was obviously wrong with the way he had gotten into the school, but he didn't know how to find out what. He thought perhaps he should ask someone for help, but that was silly. He would be seventeen in less than six months. Practically an adult. Surely he could fix a little thing like this.

In his heart, though, Goku knew this wasn't his forte. He didn't need help devising a sports strategy, or making friends, or even helping other people out with their friendship problems, but he wasn't an investigative thinker.

This worried him. At sixteen years old, any person can find something about themselves to worry sick over. Goku was athletic, likeable, and a generally average mind which occasionally found a foothold to greater heights, but he held in his heart a secret fear that he would always be seen as a child; that he had hit his peak early and that, as he grew older, his strengths in the physical and interpersonal domains would lose the spotlight in favour of his weaknesses in the academic and analytical domains. When he was forty nobody would fawn over his football skills. They would just think he was immature and unintelligent. Some days he woke up and thought that everybody who looked at him saw nothing more than an overgrown child.

He looked at his desk, which was already crowded despite having only just been populated. It overflowed with his books, his computer, and piles of stationery and miscellany. A pile of amusing erasers held down printouts of the term's fixtures here, there a pile of borrowed CDs collapsed over a small stack of football cards. It was chaos.

Looking across at Vegeta's desk, Goku wondered what kind of mind could maintain that level of organisation. The books were neatly organised, the computer sat alone on the desk and, Goku knew from experience, inside the drawers all the stationery and such would be immaculately arranged. Vegeta, Goku decided, was a person who never felt small and silly and childish.

This, of course, was not true.

The König boys had been raised to believe in the absolute infallibility and omnipotence of their father and Vegeta felt small and silly and childish every time he disappointed his father thoroughly enough to be called into the man's study for a Lecture on the greatness of all the Vegeta Königs who had gone before him. These Lectures, dwelling chiefly on the young Vegeta's 'True Potential' and the absolute soul-sucking shame that would befall his entire family and set his ancestors spinning in their graves should he fail to achieve said True Potential, composed the majority of his childhood memories regarding Vegeta the senior.

Theirs was the sort of household where the children called their father 'sir'.

Tarble never got the Lectures. Everything was different for the younger brother. Where Vegeta's True Potential, according to his father, was so dizzyingly spectacular that he spent every waking moment (and a lot of the sleeping ones) dreading the possibility that he might fail to live up to the expectations and kill his father with disappointment, Tarble's True Potential was so insignificant he could do as he pleased, without a care in the world. Vegeta tried to be a good brother, if for no reason other than that failing in this as in any duty would contribute to the soul-sucking shame and grave-spinning he had been warned about, but a hot rage simmered just under his skin every time Tarble performed less than adequately at something and received no punishment, every time he complained about the restrictions their parents placed on him, every time he treated anything as though it didn't matter.

Everything was different for Tarble. When they had been quite small, Vegeta had been taught at home by expensive tutors until he was old enough to attend Orange Star. Tarble had attended prep school, and had occasionally brought home groups of friends or attended birthday parties while Vegeta worked and worked and worked and seethed.

There was a part of Vegeta that hated his brother. The current bruise was his fault. It wasn't inaccurate to say it had been attained by playing rugby with their cousins, but it was Vegeta's fault. Everyone handled Tarble with kid gloves. He walked in to the game and suddenly everything went down a notch, because he wasn't very good at sports. If Vegeta wasn't very good at something the expectation was that he would work until he was good at it, not that everyone would just go easy on him. Until this year he had been forced to labour, untalented, at the cello because apparently cultural pursuits were important. He had become a fairly good, if mechanical, cellist through sheer hard work. Tarble didn't have to become good at anything he didn't have a natural inclination toward.

So he had been mad. He hadn't taken it down a notch, and when he'd tackled Tarble the younger boy had gone down and stayed down with a bruised face and a bloodied mouth, sobbing into the mud and grass and the informal game had stopped. A doctor had been called. Vegeta had gotten a Lecture on family, and the dark anger inside him had whispered that _this wasn't fair, none of it was fair_, and grown a little larger.

He was always angry.

He was smoking under a tree in the wood behind the tennis courts. It was a popular place with the student body, because although the wood wasn't vast here, it was very dense. You could be standing ten metres away from someone else and you'd only know what they were doing by the sound or the smell, depending on what exactly they were doing.

Right now, somebody was crunching over the leaf litter, towards where he stood. They would smell the smoke and avoid him, that was the accepted etiquette unless you were looking for someone.

Apparently they were looking for someone, because the crunching grew closer, then a little white face peered around the tree he was leaning against. She graced him with a bright smile.

"That's a filthy habit. You should give it up."

He wasn't sure what to say, so he just looked at her incredulously. She slipped a cigarette out of her own pocket and raised an eyebrow. "Well? Are you going to offer me a light?"

He lit her cigarette, then spoke. "What happened to all your hair?"

The blue cloud that typically identified Bulma Briefs from a distance; possibly from as far away as the moon, was gone. She struck a pose. "I had it chemically straightened."

"You look like a child," he told her, and she stuck out her lower lip in a pout, reinforcing the image.

"Scrunchies are in, Vegeta. The eighties are back. Get with the programme." Her tone was imperious, but her traitorous hands betrayed her lack of confidence by darting up to fidget with the high side ponytail.

"Without your mane, how will anybody tell you apart from your other blue friends?" he sneered.

Her hands went to her hips and she sneered right back. "I'm plenty identifiable, frizz or no frizz. This is an iconic face, thank you very much." Vegeta snorted derisively. "Besides, Lunch went blonde again over half term."

Vegeta winced. Lunch wasn't moody in the way other teenagers were. When she had a mood shift, it changed her outlook so fundamentally she tried to turn herself into another person. It was a more visual change once she was old enough to exert her own influence and obtain things like hair dye and coloured contacts, for which everyone was grateful, being now able to tell at a glance whether she was feeling nasty or nice. A couple of years ago, Bulma had tried to tell Vegeta that Lunch's behaviour was due to a wildly fluctuating home situation or something, but he did his best to pay no attention. All he needed to know was that if she was blonde, it was time to steer well clear.

"And Maron..." Bulma shrugged. "Well, she's the one with all the legs and boobs."

Vegeta's eyes automatically strayed to Bulma's own examples of these features, an act which had nothing at all to do with her being attractive or otherwise. It was just a biological imperative. If somebody said 'boobs', you looked at the boobs in the room.

"Two of each?" he suggested, and she gave him a withering look.

She took up station leaning against a nearby tree and Vegeta rankled at the presumptuous way she inserted herself into his private brooding session.

"What have you been up to? Looking particularly splenetic today, I have to say."

"Nothing," he snapped. "Just talking to Tarble."

"Your dad is so mean to that kid," Bulma began, and Vegeta ground his teeth together. "You are, too. Always making him do a lot of games and things he's no good at."

"Tarble is never made to do anything he doesn't want to," Vegeta spat. His head was starting to ache. He held the cigarette so tightly between his thumb and index finger that it bent into an L-shape and he threw it away.

Bulma rolled her big blue eyes and gave him an incredulous look. "Sure." She puffed quietly on her cigarette for a moment before beginning again. "You don't know how lucky you are to have a brother. I always wanted a little brother or sister. Your problem is you just don't have any empathy." On some level, she was right. He didn't have any empathy for Tarble at all. There was a certain grudging familial affection, but never any empathy. However there was nothing, in Vegeta's opinion, happening in Tarble's life that called for empathising.

"Basically, you're a total dick," Bulma added, conversationally.

One of Vegeta's problems, that he could see, was that this was as close as he came to friendship. If someone asked Bulma who Vegeta's friends were, she would probably name some of about a dozen other sixth-formers with whom he regularly stood around and chatted about polo or rugby or universities and families, bored out of his skull. He didn't like those people and he suspected they didn't like him either. If someone asked Vegeta who his friends were, he would tell them to fuck off. But if he were honest with himself, at least, he had to admit that he would rather snipe back and forth with Bulma about some triviality, or gripe with 18 Gero about how they were always teamed together for debating. At least when someone told you constantly that they didn't like you you knew where you stood.

So maybe his problem was that he only liked spending time with people who openly despised him.

"Tarble never has to do anything he doesn't want to," he reiterated.

"Oh yeah? Then how'd he get that big old bruise?" Vegeta's eyebrows rose in mild surprise and Bulma's expression turned smug. "Oh yeah, I saw him walking around this morning. I put it to you that he did something to upset your dad, and Vegeta Sr. thumped him."

"What? No!" Vegeta pushed off from the tree and glowered at his company. "My father has never laid a hand on him. On either of us." He considered Bulma a close enough acquaintance to tolerate her insulting him, even enjoy arguing with her, but he would not abide her besmirching his family. The family name was a source of immense pride for Vegeta. It was what he clung to when he was worn out or unmotivated or ready to quit. Nobody was allowed to spit upon it. "Is that something people say?"

Bulma's brows pulled together to make worried lines appear across her forehead. "I don't know. I've met your father, he's not very nice. I've never heard anyone say it before, but that'll be the main rumour about Tarble's face, once more people see it."

Vegeta folded his arms across his chest and stared at the ground. "He's never hit us."

Bulma fidgeted. "All right, then." She didn't know what else to say. She hadn't meant to bring up the topic of his parents. Vegeta always talked about his family as though the Königs had collectively flown down from heaven to set up shop on earth, graciously allowing everyone else to gaze upon their wondrous perfection, but Bulma had always thought that, while he said things about his family's perfection, he got so agitated and aggressive while doing so it completely undermined everything he was saying. Practically biting someone's head off was the wrong way to prove your daddy was a saint.

She had come out here to put in to action her plan to seduce Vegeta and then turn him down whilst cackling triumphantly. She knew Oolong, Krillin and Goku would have most likely forgotten about the whole conversation, but she hadn't. Truth be told, she had been feeling a little uncertain about her own appeal lately. She and Yamcha had been on-and-off ever since they had started dating, but recently he had started spending more time with other girls during the 'off' periods. Specifically, he spent a lot of time with Maron. Bulma had stopped growing last year, after reaching the staggering height of 5'3" and had come back to school this term to find Maron had not, and now towered over her like a skinny-legged, big-boobed skyscraper.

She couldn't compete with that, but Maron wasn't trying to seduce _Vegeta_ with her overflowing cleavage and toned thighs. She'd save her bounty for guys who could reach the top shelf at the supermarket, and Bulma would be the only one making the move here. Although Vegeta had a sort of brooding self-assurance that was attractive, he wasn't exactly welcoming, and not really handsome enough to make girls overlook his attitude and his height to flock to him in droves. His forehead was too high, his chin and nose too pointy, his ears too big. He would be no challenge to seduce.

No challenge at all, except for the fact that every time she got within earshot of him she felt an uncontrollable urge to begin hurling insults.

Maybe tomorrow, then. She'd begin the seduction tomorrow. Or maybe she'd see his smug little face and slap him. Then she could begin the seduction process the next day. That might be more satisfying.

"I'm off," she announced, extinguishing the cigarette on a tree trunk and tossing the butt onto the ground. Vegeta didn't reply, except with a tenebrous scowl. Bulma retreated quickly.

Maybe next week, then.

* * *

Some of the characters are, by nature, difficult to fit in to any sort of AU that deals with a less fantastical science fiction setting whilst still staying true to the character as presented in the original material. Lunch (or Launch, if you like) is the one I laboured over (all for a single paragraph!) but Vegeta is more likely to elicit strong opinions regarding characterisation, so I'd like to hear if you have any of said opinions? I have not read many stories of this broad variety that try to use (without delving into some really abusive family dynamic/back story) the anger, self-imposed loneliness and that constant sense of some great injustice being perpetrated against him by the universe, which were the characteristics I saw in him when I read/watched DBZ, although of course interpretation like that is all subjective.

I won't give you a summary of next time, because they always seem to end up being lies and also because I have bashed this off and submitted it without even beginning the next bit. Depending upon where my fancy takes me, the first 18 perspective bit should be coming up, but no guarantees. I do not expect that there will be such a great gap between updates this time.


	6. Chapter 6: It's Nothing

I apologise again for the pace of updates, although I suspect this may be an ongoing problem with my schedule as it stands. I thank again Lon Wolfgood and catgirl26 for kind and thoughtful reviews.

**Chapter Six: It's Nothing**

"That strange bald boy is starting to bother me," 18 told her brother, who shrugged. It was dark out and they were huddled together on the tiles surrounding the indoor pool. The building which housed the facility was a converted orangery; a large glass-panelled building once part of the sprawling gardens belonging to an impressive manor home, before the grand home had become Orange Star College and its various facilities commandeered. 17, as a member of the upper sixth form and of the swimming firsts, had a key, although he was not strictly supposed to use it at this hour, or to let in other people. They had left the main lights off, so that the only illumination came from those submerged in the pool. Strange ripples floated across the segmented ceiling.

"Are you still pretending you don't know anybody's name?" It was her turn to shrug. She drew patterns with her toe in the puddles on the floor. "What's he been doing?"

"They're refurbishing the little hall we use for debating, so we're moving into the student theatre temporarily. He seems to think this is a problem, as though they use it twenty-four hours every day."

"He'll sic the Chairman on you if you're not careful." 18 shook her head.

"She quit."

17 raised an eyebrow. "Why are they making a fuss?"

18 hesitated. "Well, the times we need the facility are times they also have scheduled to use it." Her older brother said nothing but she rolled on with the justification. "Debating facilitates the development of skills that are useful throughout life. The theatre is dead. It's nothing more than a collection of prancing idiots."

"You don't even know what you're going to do throughout life, let alone what will be useful for it."

"Of course I do. I'm going to make a lot of money."

* * *

Bulma was furious. She had dressed up and tottered down through woods and fields to the side-street alongside the stables, where an older friend had promised to pick her up and drive her in to a party, next town over. She had balanced on a crude stile, trying to avoid ruining her shoes in the mud any more than necessary, for fifteen minutes before receiving a text: 'sry party cancelled :('. She had actually screamed.

The trip back up to the school was made slightly less arduous through imaginative plotting regarding the best ways to bring her friend to justice. It was made even more interesting when, part the way up a rough running track which cut between wood and paddock, she heard a shout of pain and a stream of swearing in a very familiar voice. She hadn't seen Vegeta except in class since she had talked to him in the wood on Monday. Tarted up as she was, this made a very good chance to begin her seduction in earnest.

He was sitting on a stump with his left foot propped up on his right knee, his hands fidgeting about the sole of the shoe. The moon was bright tonight, but she couldn't make out what he was doing.

"You probably shouldn't be running around at this time of night," she told him playfully, hoisting herself onto the whitewashed post and rail fence marking one edge of the track.

"Fuck off," he snapped. She had expected that sort of vocabulary, but not the genuine venom with which he spoke it. She blinked. "Are you fucking stalking me?"

"Do you know any other fucking words?" She pouted. "You've always been very rude to me and I have never been anything but kind to you."

He grunted and tossed something. It landed among the mud and leaf litter of the path and shone slightly where the moonlight hit it. Bulma jumped down from her perch and picked it up, rolling it over between her fingers. It was a very large, very old nail of the variety holding together the nearby fence. It was wet and sticky.

"What have you been doing, prying apart the fence in a bid to set free your polo ponies?" He didn't answer, just remained hunched over his foot. "Vegeta, are you okay?"

"Fine," he replied tersely. "I'm fine." He stood up and pressed the left foot against the ground a few times experimentally. "I just had something in my shoe."

"Um." Bulma slipped the nail into her clutch and watched Vegeta attempt to continue his jog down the trail, his left leg buckling each time he put any weight upon it. "What are you doing?"

"I haven't finished my run."

"It kind of looks like you have." He shook his head but when she caught up to him and pushed him until he sank onto the damp ground he offered no resistance. With the bright display of her phone as a light, she unlaced his shoe and attempted to pull it off. He hissed in protest, and when she removed the laces completely and peeled back the tongue of the sneaker she did the same. The inside of the shoe was sodden with blood, which bubbled up around the sides of his foot looking like tar in the blue light of her mobile.

Her head was bent over his foot. He probably couldn't see it with her hair hanging in the way, and she didn't know what to tell him. 'Hey Vegeta, you totalled your foot, haha, bye to all those sports you obsess about constantly' wouldn't really do the trick. "I think you need some first aid. You need to see one of the nurses."

"No, it's fine. It's okay. It's nothing." He leant forward to look at the shoe, partially peeled away from his foot, and Bulma couldn't tell whether he looked very pale or if it was just the eerie light. "It's fine," he said again, a little fainter. "I'm fine. I can just... I can just walk it off."

"I am no doctor, but I am about one hundred percent sure that walking is not on the list of things which will help a big hole in your foot. I think you are going to be laid up for a while, friend."

"No," he repeated and this time it sounded like a little, sad moan. She looked at him. He looked pale and lost and sick and just about the least attractive she had ever seen him, and she had known him since he was only eleven and his only hobby was pushing other little boys into the mud. She kissed him on the mouth.

He went very still for a moment with her lips pressed, close-mouthed, against his then turned his head to one side and threw up.

"Thanks." She said. "Thanks a lot." He didn't pay her any attention. Bulma hooked her arms under his left shoulder and heaved him up. He shook her off.

"I can do it myself. I'm fine." He took three steps towards the school, with her following, before his left ankle twisted uselessly. She caught his weight as he fell slack against her. "I can do it myself," he told her again, but didn't pull away.

"Okay," she agreed, but didn't let go.

* * *

18 returned to the senior girls' boarding house feeling serene. There was always something soothing about the pool late at night. She liked the way water adapted so seamlessly to whatever was going on in and around it but, as soon as conditions returned to normal it slipped effortlessly back into its original state. She wanted to be like that. She wanted for people to be unable to fundamentally alter the person she was. The idea that she might be a completely different person in ten, twenty years disturbed her because what, then, was the kernel of 18ness that connected the person she was to that person, other than some shared past experiences and using the same body to travel about in? She wanted to be able to point to some part of herself and say 'that is me, that is 18 and even when I am unrecognisable due to circumstance, that is the truth of me and I will always return to it'. You had to change so much to succeed in the business world she aspired to, sacrifice so much of yourself. She wanted to know there would always be something left to which she could return.

The easiest way, she thought, to not be irrevocably influenced by people was to consider them irrelevant and avoid most meaningful contact with them.

Some people, however, would not be avoided.

"Well," said Chichi Mao, standing with her hands on her hips in the door of 18's room. "I cannot believe I have to hear from _Mai_, of all people, that you have been commandeering the student theatre for your silly club."

18 glared at the room-mate in question, who shrugged sheepishly and attempted to disappear beneath her covers. "Chichi you are not even in the dramatics society any longer, and Mai never was to begin with, so I fail to understand why you are bringing this issue up."

"I don't have to be in the society to be concerned about it, 18. It's important for the cultural tone of the school and for the furtherance of anyone's school work who happens to be taking Theatre Studies."

"The cultural tone of the school doesn't concern me any more than the dealings of groups you do not belong to should concern you. Next you will be championing the cause of the morris dancing society."

Chichi's face grew slightly pink and she puffed up in preparation for another round, but 18 closed the door on her and turned out the light. She looked over at Mai but saw only the black mound of hair and exaggerated rise and fall of the quilt that indicated she was pretending to be asleep.

18 lay on her back with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling until the point at which she found sleep.

* * *

"Hey, Bulma!"

"Hey, Goku." The tall boy collapsed onto the couch beside her, in one of the private study rooms in the humanities library.

"Sorry to ask you to help me out when I know you are pretty busy, but did you hear Vegeta hurt his foot really bad and can't do any games? He's in a pretty bad mood so I didn't like to ask him."

Bulma chewed on her lower lip. She had promised, the night before, not to tell anyone about his foot, and that she would just patch it up for him using the first aid kit in the laundry room of her boarding house. When she'd gotten a look at both the wound and the nail in full light, however, she'd realised the nail was larger than she'd thought, and rustier, and the wound deeper and seemed to have fibres from the inside of his shoe stuck in it. It wouldn't stop bleeding and he couldn't move his toes, so as soon as he'd hobbled back to the senior boys' boarding house, she had called the nurse. The text messages from Vegeta had started with 'fuck you, you lying bitch' and escalated from there.

"Yeah, I heard that. Is he okay?"

Goku looked uncertain. "Well, he's upset. The doctor came in the middle of the night and he has to stay in bed with his foot up all day today, which is no way to spend a Saturday. Possibly even worse than this." He gestured towards the history books scattered across the low table before them. "And he sure won't be doing any games or training for the rest of the term, at least." Goku shook his head. "He'll miss lots of rugby and swimming, and all the first polo games I guess. You wouldn't think it, just going on a run, you know?"

"If he gets a very bad infection the school might get in trouble," Bulma mused, "since he was running on school grounds."

"They said they are worried about something about nerves and bone infections, I think."

Bulma grimaced. "Really, who cares about him anyway. This isn't getting your history done, is it? Let's get on with it."

"Okay, let's get to it. Oh, actually, just a second." He leapt up from the couch and darted out of the room, leaving Bulma's protests to die on her tongue. She watched through the glass walls as he cornered Chichi Mao and, after watching him talk urgently to the other girl for a moment, the blue-haired teenager sighed, shook her head and set about doing some of her own work.

* * *

"So, Chichi, you see, Krillin doesn't actually want you out of the club. He wants to work together with you to, uh, take advantage of your organisational skills in tandem with his own personnel management style?"

Goku grinned toothily in a way that told Chichi he knew perfectly well how transparent he was being, but was hoping to get by on charm. It was probably going to work, not because he was tall and athletic with a nice smile which, she told herself, she would assume was how this sort of thing usually worked for him if she happened to notice that he was tall and athletic with a nice smile. But she hadn't noticed those things so she wouldn't assume anything about them or him or anything. The reason this was going to work for him was because Chichi couldn't bear the thought of her society being pushed out of its rightful space by the pale, impassive face of tyranny. It was a face which bore a marked resemblance to the pale, impassive face of 18 Gero, and it was a face which made her unreasonably angry.

"If I'm such an asset, why isn't Krillin here telling me himself?"

"We-ell," Goku looked sheepish. "I guess Krillin's been trying for so long to think of the right way to ask you to come back to the society he thinks, if he asks now, you'll assume he's just asking because he wants your help with the problems they're having." Krillin was right on the mark. "I'm sure you wouldn't just assume that kind of thing about somebody, though. Sometimes he can be really negative."

Chichi had an awful feeling that Goku really did think she would give Krillin's motivations the benefit of the doubt if he approached her, and the knowledge that she wouldn't actually do so made her suddenly uncomfortable. "Problems?" She asked, opening her eyes wide in a picture of exaggerated clueless innocence.

"Yeah, uhm," the tall boy leant down to her and looked around, furtively. "Okay don't tell people but he is having trouble securing the student theatre for all their normal times, and the planning meetings he's had to hold in the main building lounge or empty classrooms. I think everyone's expecting it to be fixed by beginning week two, but that is only a couple of days and he is not getting anywhere."

Chichi frowned. She hadn't any idea Krillin would let it get that bad. Maybe lose or reschedule one of the optional meetings each week, or move the practices to weekend times, but Goku made it sound like Krillin had moved all three of the week one planning meetings to spaces that prohibited any kind of practical planning of blocking, sound or lighting. "They're still in the theatre for the practices and workshops, though, I hope. How could he let it get that bad?"

"He's got a crush on 18 so he goes red and fumble-y when she looks at him, and it's the debating soc. taking all the good timeslots, plus she was in there with the lacrosse team on Wednesday when the heating was out in the little games building they usually use and he just kind of stood outside mumbling for a while then they all went somewhere else. He told me."

Chichi blinked, and tried to imagine anyone fancying 18. Objectively, she was tall and thin and blonde and impeccably presented. On the other hand, she seemed to have shed all the trappings of ordinary humanity like a chrysalis when she was about thirteen. She grated at Chichi. "He has a crush on 18?" Goku nodded. "18 Gero?" Chichi asked, as though any other family would be nutty enough to name their children after numbers.

"Don't tell anyone, okay? And don't tell Krillin I told you, because I keep accidentally telling people and he gets really upset about it all." Chichi made a zipping motion over her lips and nodded, still stunned at the idea of 18 as a desirable human being. She couldn't even imagine her getting kissed. She'd probably rip off and eat Krillin's head if he got too close, like a praying mantis. She shook her head.

Krillin should stick to someone his own size, she thought, if he could find anyone fitting that description.

"I'll talk to Krillin," she conceded, and Goku grinned so broadly his face almost split in two.

"Thanks! Well, see you around." He appeared to be thinking, so Chichi gave him a moment. "Oh yeah, I wanted to say I like your dad."

"I'll let him know. He is single."

"What?" Goku looked confused, then horrified. "That's not what I meant!" Chichi's mouth curled into a suppressed smile and she touched one hand over her mouth. "I just meant he seems like a cool guy. I mean I'd rather have a dad named 'Ox' than 'Mr. Son' any day."

"It's not his real name," she explained, unsure whether Goku had truly thought it was. "It's a nickname he got in school."

Goku shrugged. "I just wanted you to know you and your dad are really cool."

She pressed her fingertips a little firmer against her lips and wondered if that was what he had meant to say.

* * *

Thank you for reading, and thank you also in advance if you find the time to review.


	7. Chapter 7: Whatsitland

Well I actually got this one done quite swiftly! Thank you to regular reviewer Lon Wolfgood, and also to Lady Lan and Seren McGowan. All your reviews made me very happy. I guess I am easily pleased, to be so delighted with receiving reviews. Simple minds, simple pleasures.

**Chapter Seven: Whatsitland**

"Krillin, do you remember before the break when I told you about what's been bothering me?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well there's some important stuff I didn't tell you."

Krillin looked up. "Goku to be honest when a guy comes into my bedroom and tells me there's something important he wants to tell me, I get a little jumpy."

Goku's mouth compressed into a wide, flat line. "I thought this would be a good time because if I go into my room Vegeta is going to throw stuff at me again." His face brightened. "Hey, I know, I'll just sleep in here tonight."

Goku flopped down on the other bed and Krillin stared at him. "Seriously though, Goku, if your 'important stuff' is that you're gay and the real reason Vegeta is so mad is because you tried to bum him, I think you should go."

The taller boy sat up. "I'm not gay!" he wailed. "Why does everybody think I'm gay? I like girls plenty."

"I don't really think you're gay, calm down. Wait, everyone?"

"Chichi tried to set me up with her dad!"

"I'm sure she was joking."

"She still _said_ it." He looked embarrassed for a moment, then the feeling passed and he perked up. "Anyway I'll just sleep in Yamcha's bed. He won't mind."

"He probably will when he gets in."

"He's at a party though, right? He won't be home until the middle of the night, and Vegeta will be asleep by then."

Krillin shook his head. "On a Sunday night? No, he took Bulma out."

"One day those two are going to have about eighty marriages and divorces, all to each other." Goku fidgeted with Yamcha's bedding. "Anyway, I was going to tell you something." Krillin looked at him expectantly. "Can I use your computer?"

The bald boy shrugged compliance and Goku quickly navigated the the website he wanted. "What do you think of this?"

Krillin peered over his shoulder. "It's a school. Nice forests, I guess. Dicky hats."

"No, I mean," Goku squinted. "I don't know what I mean, but this is supposed to be the school I went to before I came here, according to my records. I've never even been to..." he wriggled his fingers at the screen. "Whatsitland. Or anything like that. I've never been out of the country."

"Oh."

"I mean I don't know if maybe it is all a mistake and there is some genius kid over in the middle of nowhere with nearly the same name as me wondering why he didn't get in but, uh, I don't think so."

"You don't think so."

"Nope." Krillin had taken the computer and was tapping away at the keyboard with an expression of furious concentration.

"What do you think, then?"

"You can't tell anyone." Krillin didn't look up from the screen, but held up one hand with his index and middle fingers entwined. That was good enough for Goku. "I think my parents... I don't know, switched someone's work or something?" he whispered. "I don't know how, though."

Krillin stopped typing and rested his palms flat on the keyboard. He sighed. "Do you want to know?"

"What do you mean? Of course I want to know."

"Have you given any thought to the fact that, if you gained your place here through fraudulent means you will be expelled, whether your grades are improving or not?"

Goku paled. Of course, that was obvious, but somehow it had never occurred to him that looking for answers ran contrary to his feverish efforts at keeping his place here. "They are improving, though. I mean, you heard in history that my prep is getting so much better."

"It won't matter, though, if your entrance was intentionally deceptive. It might be a different matter if it was just a mistake and you were doing okay and your parents could pay the fees, but if they actually defrauded the school..." he shrugged.

"They wouldn't really have defrauded it, though, because the school's not losing anything. They're still paying fees."

"The school loses image and respect if they keep on a student enrolled in those circumstances, especially if you don't go on to do great things. In the long run, that loses them money."

Goku rested his elbows on his knees and sighed. "I couldn't stay on, anyway, even if they let me." Krillin quirked an eyebrow. "If there's some kid out there who was supposed to get my place and got conned out of it, it wouldn't be right for me to stay on."

"Do you want to stay, though?"

"Of course I do. You guys are my friends. But I don't want to stay if it means I am stealing the place from someone else who worked harder for it and deserves it more." Krillin started to speak but Goku cut him off. "Even if he didn't really work harder for it, if it should have been his place, it should have been his place. It's not like it was any great hardship for me to go to the comp in town."

"Maybe it would be better then if you didn't pursue this."

Goku straightened up and shook his head. He was sure about this. "No, I really need to know if I got in on another boy's results. I will just worry about it if I don't know."

"I didn't think you worried about anything for any length of time."

Goku grinned. "Not if I can help it. I'm going to go back to my room and hope he's asleep. Can you tell me later if there's anything, I don't know, weird about the website?"

"Sure, but do you mind if I ask Bulma? She's more technologically minded, whereas I'm a humanities man myself."

"Okay, I'm friends with Bulma, but remember to tell her it's a secret." Goku stood up and moved to the door. "But I swear you told me at the start of term you couldn't stand her."

"Of course, she's a spoilt brat."

"But you don't complain any more if she and her friends hang out with us, and now you're going to go seek her out for help?"

Krillin laughed and held up his hands, palms out.

"You're a magician, buddy."

* * *

"Krillin." He cringed and tried to exit the theatre studies class looking as though he hadn't heard her speak. "Krillin Chastain."

"Chichi, I'm the only Krillin in the whole school. If it looks like I'm ignoring you, it's not because I thought you were talking to some other Krillin. The surname really doesn't help."

"Obviously it does, since you're talking to me now." He sighed and rubbed a palm over his face, but waited for her to catch up to him. "I need to discuss something with you."

"Sure thing," he glanced at his watch. "But you need to make it quick, I have a sociology class to get to."

She shook her head. "I have a spare now, and this is important."

'Yeah,' he felt like saying, 'sorry, I forgot nobody else's stuff is ever important.' He stared at her blankly instead.

"It's about the student theatre and the debating society." Krillin's hand clenched a little tighter around his books. Who had been talking to Chichi, of all people, about this? "And, apparently, the lacrosse firsts?" Ah. Goku. Krillin had complained at length about the debating club to anybody who would listen, including the staff members who had given them the go-ahead on using the theatre, but he hadn't been game to tell anyone but Goku that on Wednesday he'd been too chicken to oust the lacrosse team, who had no grounds at all on which to use the space.

"So you want to berate me for not kicking them out? Go ahead, then. The sooner you start the sooner I can leave."

At sixteen Chichi had already, by some misjudgement of the gods, been gifted with that particular glare employed by everyone's mum ever to terrify their sons into whimpering submission. She fixed this weapon upon Krillin now, and some instinct told him to shut up. Immediately.

"I'm not trying to lecture you, Krillin, although you make it pathetically easy. I'm trying to help you. I want you to make me vice-chair of the dramatics society." She eyeballed him but he said nothing. "I'm not going to interfere with your decisions, but you need someone to actually manage the club, not just produce and direct the performance. And I need to make sure the society doesn't crash and burn."

Krillin wasn't sure what to think. Not about Chichi, she hadn't done anything particularly unusual or worrying, but about Goku. On one hand, he wanted to punch the guy. Krillin had told him things in confidence and was now hearing them back from somebody he couldn't stand. It wasn't an ideal situation. On the other hand, whatever he'd said to her had resulted in a perfect solution for Krillin. Not only would Chichi solve the issue about the space, but she'd be back in the fold doing all the tedious managerial stuff Krillin hated, but confined by her new role to staying away from making creative decisions the rest of the membership disagreed with.

"The society isn't spontaneously combusting without you, Chichi."

"Pretty close. You couldn't organise your way out of a paper bag, Krillin."

He bristled. As perfect as this opportunity was, he could feel himself getting ready to push it away. "I'm not going to just hand over a new position of authority to you. You weren't voted in. The rest of the society didn't want you in authority."

Her eyebrows drew together and her lips formed a thin, white line. She blinked furiously and sniffled. Krillin had known her long enough to spot the signs of oncoming hysterics.

"No tears, please. Seriously. I'm not going to just hand this over to you, but if you can sort out this debating thing--"

"As good as done."

"---in a way that satisfies our requirements for the space, but doesn't completely shaft anyone else," he gave her a pointed look. "then, and only then will I let you take the role of vice-chair, which will be very clearly defined beforehand." He was so pleased with his own negotiating skills he could have high-fived himself. Way to stand up to her. He hadn't even backed down when she'd been ready to bring on the crying, and that always threw him.

"As I said, it's as good as done."

"I don't think you're going to be able to just boss her around."

"I don't think I'm going to be impaired by constantly staring at her legs." Krillin could feel his face heating up, and knew he'd be going gradually red. "For one thing, _my_ eye line starts a little higher."

"Hey!" he protested, but she was already walking away. "You're no Amazon, Chichi Mao!" She didn't give any indication of having heard him, and he set off to his next class, already late and muttering under his breath. "It's just the high horse that fools everyone."

* * *

"You know, a lot of boyfriends wouldn't like it if their girl turned up late to lunch because she's been skipping out on class to spend time in another guy's dorm." Yamcha pushed back the seat opposite his using his foot. "You're lucky I'm so understanding or I might get upset."

"Oo," Bulma put a hand to her cheek and pretended to look shocked. "Is somebody jealous?"

"Sure, B," he smiled toothily "I'm in a state of constant worry about what you might be getting up to with angry, crippled midgets. I got you the cod, but you can trade for my chicken pie if you'd rather."

"Fish is fine." She slipped into the chair and rolled her eyes dramatically. "You know I have gone to visit him every day this week and I still haven't managed to catch him in bed, where he is_ supposed_ to be resting."

"I'm not sure I want to hear where you _have_ been catching him."

"Yamcha!" She reached across the table and playfully punched him in the shoulder. "I just mean he keeps trying to go outside or to the gym and 'get things done'. It's ridiculous." She shook her head and Yamcha noted, with mild amusement, that the hair, chemically straightened at great expense over the recent break, was already starting to get treatment from a curling iron, or whatever it was she used to 'give the hair body', as she would put it.

"Why even go see him?"

She sighed and tilted her head back. "He doesn't have many other friends who are willing to visit him while he's in such a vile mood." She stuck up a finger to silence the expected interjection. "And you have no idea how much worse than usual, Yamcha. Goku says he got so mad on Monday night, when they told him he wouldn't be back in class yesterday, he just started throwing things around and smashed up his laptop."

"'Other friends'? I thought you hated him."

"I do! But you know he might be getting around on crutches now if he had just stayed in bed and let things heal. Somebody has to make sure he doesn't go around being such an idiot the whole damn foot falls off."

"I think that would take some serious dedication. Just leave him be. If he makes things worse for himself, then he's the only person who suffers." Yamcha didn't see the problem here. As far as he was concerned, Vegeta König had always been kind of a mental. When Yamcha had come to Orange Star at eleven, Vegeta had been one of the room-mates in their six bed dormitory, and even then he'd thought the other boy was a little strange. His first impression of Vegeta had been as a very small, slight boy whose idea of socialising with peers extended to ordering them around or pushing them down. It was an impression that had lasted.

"That's not very nice, Yamcha. It's his birthday today." She spoke very matter-of-factly and Yamcha had a moment of private outrage, wondering if there had been some sort of memo circulated amongst everyone important enough to know this fact. Bulma didn't fit the old money mould any more than Yamcha did, but her family's net worth was simply so outlandishly decadent she couldn't be ignored. As far as Yamcha could see, there really wasn't a whole lot of tangible difference between £30 million, £300 million and £3 billion. What were you going to spend it all on? Yamcha liked his family's money. He liked it very much, but he didn't know what he'd do with so much more of it, and he didn't really see the point in making distinctions between levels of wealth, once you got to the serious sort of comfort everyone who could afford to attend here lived in.

"I didn't know that," he said.

Bulma shrugged. "Girls remember that kind of thing."

"Or just you."

She stuck out her tongue. "I know Quitterie remembered, because there was a little parcel and card from her on his desk today, so not just me."

"Ah, Quitterie." Yamcha grinned and shook his head slowly, leaning back in his chair. "What I wouldn't give to have a pair of legs like that chasing me the way she follows him around."

"Excuse me?" Bulma's face transformed instantly into a very serious frown. Yamcha suspected his attempt at whimsical self-deprecation had fallen flat. "What would you want that for, when you already have a _girlfriend_, mister?" He cringed. There was no good answer here. If he told her he was joking she would go into a diatribe regarding things that were and were not funny, and if he said he found being on the receiving end of a pretty girl's obvious interest flattering, girlfriend or no, he'd be in even bigger trouble. "It's not as though he's too stupid to figure her out, anyway. He says mean things about her behind her back."

"He probably says mean things about her to her face. If he opens his mouth, mean things come out. His language skills consist entirely of spite." Bulma shrugged. "Can we talk about something else, babe? Did you like the movie on Sunday?"

"Sure." She dug into her lunch and the conversation lulled while they ate. When she finished Bulma put down her cutlery and sighed dramatically until Yamcha asked her what was wrong.

"Are you shagging Maron?"

He choked on a mushroom.

"What?"

"It's just an off-hand question. Are you? Having sex with her?"

"No! You know I'd never cheat on you." This was true. There didn't seem to be much point in cheating on Bulma. She could never put up with him for long enough for him to get bored of her. There would always be some slight, real or imagined, for which she'd dump him temporarily and it was during these times – only during these times – that he found his way to other girls. He'd never even slept with Maron during one of these breaks. She had some very particular ideas about how many dates one should go on, and how far apart they should be, before sex even became an option. The last time Yamcha and Bulma had been 'on a break' for long enough to satisfy Maron's exacting requirements they had still been 15 and she had decided, at the last minute, that she would rather wait until everything was legal.

"But you've thought about it."

What was there to say to that. He was male. He was nearly seventeen. If it had anything vaguely classifiable as an orifice, he'd thought about having sex with it. He spread his hands wide and tried to look abashed as he told her "Well, of course!"

It didn't have the intended effect. Her blue eyes grew dark and stormy and she sucked her cheeks in. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, in a low, quiet voice that worried Yamcha more than the usual yelling.

"I just meant it as a joke. That, you know, I'm a guy and guys have thoughts... of that nature."

"It sounds to me like you think she's better-looking than me." Her voice rose as she spoke, and the students at nearby tables cast curious eyes towards them. They knew what to expect and were waiting for the show to begin.

"What? No! You're amazing, babe. Nobody like you."

"That's right. You're lucky to have me." She was a step below shouting, but was biting out her words loud enough for most of the canteen to have gone quietly observant.

"Right! Why would I ever choose Maron over you?"

"Oh my god," she shrieked. "You just cannot stop talking about her, can you?"

"What?"

"I am out of here, Yamcha! Maybe you should go see if Maron will comfort you." Bulma slammed her hands down on the table as she stood, then stalked out of the room with her nose in the air.

There was quiet for a moment.

"Man!" piped up a voice from the corner. "I was hoping she'd be all 'well can Maron compete with _this_?' and rip open her shirt in front of everyone. Maybe pour some of that yoghurt all over herself."

"Oolong! That would never happen."

"Krillin's right; Bulma wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, you two are both right. It just wouldn't make sense to do that, because no doubt Maron _could_ compete with whatever Bulma's got."

* * *

Quitterie, for those who do not remember her, was in chapter... two I believe.

I feel safe in declaring that next time will include some sort of Chichi vs 18 goings-on. Thunder! Lightning! None of those things!

Anyway please leave a review if you enjoyed reading, or leave a nasty one if you didn't. Either way, I would like to hear from you. Thank you!


	8. Chapter 8: Not The Bees

Thank you to Seren McGowan, catgirl26, Lady Lan and Lon Wolfgood for the reviews, and if you think it's been like four months between updates here you are obviously hallucinating because this is completely timely. Uh huh.

**Chapter Eight: Not The Bees**

"It's just that he's completely unbelievable, you know? Thinking about fucking Maron all this time while he's got me!"

Vegeta pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. Hard. Maybe he could push so hard his eyeballs would pop back into his skull and squash his brain and kill him. One could only hope.

"Fantasising about her like that is basically cheating. I've _never_ cheated on him."

He didn't move his hands, but he could practically feel her bite down on her lower lip and look at him sideways. He thought about making a sneering comment about her kissing other boys, but he was pretending he didn't remember that. Trying to examine his own motives for pretending it hadn't happen was uncomfortable. Which was a worse idea; that she had meant it and had some sort of horrible attachment to him, or that she hadn't and it had been some sort of pity kiss for someone she thought couldn't find affection on his own, if he should so desire. And he didn't desire. John Donne only thought no man was an island because he'd never met Vegeta König.

"I'm glad you're lying down," she said at last. He peeked out from under his hands as she sat down on Goku's bed and drew her legs up, dragging them against the edge of the bed so the backs of her shoes caught. They slid off her feet to the ground with matching thuds. She tucked her knees under her chin and her uniform skirt bunched up around her hips. He could see her underwear. He pressed his hands back into his eyes.

"I've just been reading," he told her, determined not to admit that sitting at his desk all morning had sent waves of pain shooting from his foot all the way up through his chest to his shoulder. His head hurt now too badly for reading.

"What was the gift Quitterie left for you?" He shrugged. "Are you all right? Have you got a headache?"

"I'm fine."

She slid Goku's laptop off his desk and onto the bed. Vegeta rolled onto his side, facing the wall with his back to her. "I'm just taking a look at this website for Goku and Krillin." He didn't offer any comment and she didn't try to elicit one from him, setting to tapping away at the keyboard for a while.

"It's this website that's for some boarding place admissions thinks Goku attended," she said conversationally. "Doesn't look suspicious in any way, really. Probably need to do some more looking into the details of the organisation holding the domain." She closed the computer and looked at Vegeta's back. "Are you awake?"

He said nothing, so she closed the blinds and left the room in quiet darkness.

* * *

18 finished her final lap and drew herself effortlessly out of the pool. Chichi tried to look at her as Krillin might, and objectively she could imagine that the long, sleek creature staring her down might look fine-boned and delicate to someone who had never had the displeasure of speaking with her. Where on another girl Chichi would envy the long, thin legs on 18 she thought they looked boyish and knobbly-kneed, and where the curve of her carriage might look elegant Chichi thought it gangly and bony, all protruding hip bones and vertebrae.

18 didn't address her, just padded across the tiles to collect her towel and begin drying off.

"I need to talk to you about the student theatre."

"You already did."

"Why do you intentionally make things difficult for other people?"

18's mouth twitched in a small suggestion of a smile. "Why do _you?_"

"I don't." Chichi's brows drew together.

"You make things difficult for other people. So do I. Our intentions are to do what's best for ourselves. It's just a side-effect."

"I'm not just out for myself," Chichi replied, a note of self-satisfaction creeping into her voice. "Unlike you, I'm thinking about a broader set of needs. The maintenance of culture and quality."

The tall blonde fixed her with a flat, affectless stare. "That's just your jargon for what's important to you, personally. If you were a debater instead of a dramatics person you'd be standing right where I am, doing just what I'm doing."

Chichi felt the usual aimless sense of anger and injustice bubble up, and the usual frustration at pushing it down brought the usual tears pricking at her eyes. "I'm not a self-serving person." There was a quiver in her vowels.

"Are you going to cry? Nobody's believed your tears were genuine since you were twelve. People give in to them because they feel guilty and uncomfortable, not because they believe you are upset and want to help you out. You look like a manipulative fool."

Chichi sniffled. "I'm not—" she took a gulping breath and stopped to get a hold of herself. "This isn't what I came here to talk about. Nobody's trying to prevent the debating society from using the hall. We just need to work out some times that are convenient for everybody, and since Krillin can't bring himself to negotiate with you, here I am."

"The times I have now are convenient for me."

Chichi folded her arms across her belly to stop herself clawing out the taller girl's tongue. "The thing is that the dramatics society has a membership encompassing the entire student body and it has been very difficult to come up with these times in the first place. Senior debating is just sixths and a couple of fifths. It's much simpler for you to reorganise than it is for us."

"The times I have now are convenient for me." 18 slung her towel over a shoulder and walked into the changing rooms. Chichi stormed out into the chilly evening.

* * *

"Ssshhh." Goku put his index finger to his lips and shook his head at Chichi. She dropped her hand from where it had been knocking upon his dormitory door and he gestured for her to come down to where he was standing in the corridor.

"Sshh," he said again, "Vegeta's in there."

"Uh, yeah, I need to talk to him."

"He's sleeping."

She cocked one fine eyebrow. "I didn't know he ever slept."

"Not often, that's for sure."

Chichi bit the inside of her cheek. "I really need to talk to him about the debating society. 18 is just a brick wall. Talking to her is torture."

"I'm sure she's not that bad," Goku said. He tried to think of something nice to say about her, based on his limited interaction with her. "She's very pretty and good at sports."

"You think everyone's pretty."

"Nuh-uh," he insisted. "I don't think Oolong's pretty." Chichi laughed. She was one of those people who lifted a hand to cover their mouth when they laughed and ducked their head down.

"It's funny how when you cry you make it so big, but when you laugh you try to make it so small." He said it as though it were the most natural observation in the world and it made her uncomfortable.

"Don't analyse me."

He shrugged. His whole body moved with his shoulders, his head rolling to one side as though it were an integral part of the shrug. While they were analysing each other, she thought, she liked the way he did everything with all of himself, from throwing himself into games or studies to little things like smiling or shrugging. "I just noticed, is all. I guess it's kind of cute because it's like, why would you even do that? Laughing's way more fun to do big than crying is."

"I guess you've had more practice than I have."

"Maybe you should hang out with funnier friends."

"You're trying to turn the whole lower sixth into some sort of feel-good friendship lesson, aren't you?"

"Nuh-uh, no way. Why would I stop at the lower sixth?"

* * *

When he woke up somebody had drawn the blinds, but it was dark out anyway. He hadn't meant to fall asleep and it was frustrating to think he'd lost an entire afternoon to a stupid nap. He didn't know how to work out the frustration, either. Vegeta became very frustrated with impressive ease. He could go from perfectly calm to feeling like he'd cry if he didn't hit something in two seconds flat. Ordinarily he would run to work off the nervous energy and without that outlet he'd already become destructive.

He swung a fist around uselessly. That was unsatisfying so he punched himself in the leg, which hurt so much he made a little whimpering sound in the back of his throat. Vegeta König Sr. had called that morning, because it was Vegeta König Jr.'s birthday, and just when the teenager had thought he'd worked up the courage to admit he couldn't stay awake if he took the prescription painkillers and couldn't think about anything but the pain if he couldn't his father had made some flippant comment about how it was a reflection on the König stock that the boy didn't even need time off school and would be back playing fixtures before Christmas.

And now he'd lost a whole afternoon to a nap. The most frustrating thing in the world, Vegeta thought, was being unable to make your body do what you wanted it to do. He punched his bed and the wall until his knuckles were bruised and raw, which took the edge off the pain in his foot. He was feeling very sorry for himself.

The door opened without a knock and Tarble slipped into the room. He took a seat at Vegeta's desk while Vegeta sat back down on his bed.

"Dad's been calling up to tell me how great you are," the younger of the brothers pouted. Vegeta stared at the wall. "It's always 'Vegeta this', 'Vegeta that'. I hate that shit. Why aren't I just as worth talking about?"

Vegeta ignored the question, as he always did, but Tarble was apparently serious about getting answer. The smaller boy stared at his brother insistently.

Eventually Vegeta shrugged. "I don't know. Is it is because you don't spend twenty hours a day sweating blood to achieve something worth talking about?"

"What?" Tarble drew back. "What kind of an answer is that? What about 'oh, Tarble, you're worth talking about!'? What about that?"

"Fine, whatever. Just pretend I said that, then. I don't fucking care."

"Man, I can't believe I even came in here to see if you were okay. You're the worst brother. Seriously. You don't even care about anybody but yourself. You just do and say whatever you want all the time." He practically flounced out the door and Vegeta hoped that if Tarble told their parents about the exchange they would just take it as some typical 15-year-old drama from the younger brother.

He sat and brooded on Tarble's accusations. As if he ever did anything he wanted. What he wanted to do on Friday nights was to go out and get shit-faced at some stupid party with his peers, just because he could, even though he knew he never liked being around that many people. What he actually did on Friday nights was run in the dark on his own. And what he'd like to say was … well, okay, he mostly did say whatever he wanted, except when it came to his own family. But that didn't make him feel any less hard done by.

He idly sent a text to Bulma ('_fuck you_') and received one in reply almost straight away ('_you wish ;)_'). It almost made him smile. At least Bulma let you know exactly where you stood with her, even if she did do it at the top of her obnoxious voice. He began writing a text detailing exactly why nobody would ever want to have sex with her, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Yes?"

"Hi Vegeta. 18 told me I should sort out the new debating schedule with you, because the only other thing she really has is lacrosse so she doesn't have much to conflict with."

Vegeta eyed Chichi with suspicion. There was no doubt in his mind that she was lying. He ended up partnered with 18 in debating every year, but it certainly wasn't of their own free will. Vegeta disliked 18 just as much as he disliked every other miserable idiot in the school and she felt the same way about him. She'd rather ruin the scheduling than let him do it. With that said, he really didn't care if Chichi was lying or what 18's reaction to him 'fixing' the schedule for her would be. He could already think of a few ways he could improve his timetabling. 18 could fix up her stupid lacrosse stuff herself or, better yet, quit debating and never talk to him again.

"Fine."

* * *

In the second week of December the crisp, cool air of the preceding autumn was suddenly swept away by the soggy gusts of winter. The first fall of sleet had come on the Friday night and Saturday fixtures were as much mud-wrestling as football.

"Hate this weather," Krillin muttered, the words barely intelligible behind chattering teeth.

"Sodding cold," Yamcha agreed.

"I like it!" Goku chirped, flopping down on the grass beside his bag. The turf beside the field was soggy, but hadn't been torn up, the way the playing area had, into mud and muck by the game they'd just finished. "It's sort of bracing. You're all warm inside from running around but the air's so cold. It's kind of good."

The other two rolled their eyes. "You know," Krillin began, "I'm not sure there's anything I could say I hated that wouldn't get an 'oh it's not so bad!' response from you, Goku. Like what if I said I hated getting mauled by rabid bears?"

"Or I hated getting kicked in the nuts," Yamcha added.

"Or getting tricked on to a spooky cult island to investigate a crime only to be burnt alive by crazies like Edward Woodward."

"Or Nicolas Cage."

"Good one, Yamcha. Watching that version of _The Wicker Man_ is probably worse than any torture our pathetic brains could conjure up."

"What about getting killed by bees?"

"Not the bees!"

"I bet Goku would think there's something good about getting stung by bees. Right, Goku?"

Goku blinked.

"Goku could find the positive in anything," Krillin said.

"George Lazenby as Bond?"

Krillin nodded.

"Electroshock genital torture?"

Krillin snickered and nodded.

"Red hot needles right in your eyeballs?"

"Aargh!" Goku slapped his hands over his eyes. "What the hell, Yamcha? That's awful! I'm going to have nightmares about that for months now. Ugh." He shuddered.

"Well." Krillin drank from his water bottle contemplatively. "I guess we know one thing Goku unequivocally does not like."

"Right," Yamcha nodded. "Needles to the eyes: do not want."

"I've got no idea what we're going to do at our next party now, of course."

* * *

It took a while for Goku to recover from the pointy imagery his friends had planted in his head. The three boys stood beside the wet field waiting for Goku to pull himself together for some time after the opposing team had gone home and the rest of their own team had made their way up to the school proper. Eventually he managed to drag himself indoors for a hot shower and a change of clothes, but was already running very late for the afternoon tutoring session he'd arranged with Bulma.

Fortunately, she was still sitting in the library when he finally made it, and she looked pretty calm. She had managed, with the usual combination of wile and will, to snag a nice couch with a low table in front of it and appeared to be working on something of her own; something like an architectural plan or a blueprint, without the blue paper.

"Whatcha doing?" he asked as he sat.

"Technology & Design coursework," she replied. "I want to do something really special. Design something worthwhile. An innovation, not just the same old student crap."

"Oh. What is it then?"

She rolled the papers up and shoved them in her bag. "I guess you'll find out when we start manufacturing it."

"Okay." The smug smile was meant to encourage him into pressing her for details, but he left the bait. "So. History. For my homework I'm trying to write about why Harold II lost and got himself killed so soon after getting to be king."

Bulma grimaced and Goku quickly pulled out his homework planner for an alternative.

"Oooorrr I could write about Robespierre or, um, Nicholas II? Those are the topics I wrote down in yesterday's class."

"Okay. Goku. Look. For my prep this week, with a view to what I'm focussing on when we get to assessment, I'm writing about the growth of scientific enquiry in the late 17th century. You need to pick something to focus on for the independent study portion of the subject. If you pick something medieval, you need Krillin to help you, and if you pick bloody revolutions and _Grande Armée_, you're going to have to risk getting your head bitten off by your charming room-mate. If you want me to help you out then I'm afraid you're studying the rise of scientific method and women's suffrage from here on."

"Oh. I wrote these down because that's what most people in my class are doing, though, so I thought they'd be easiest. Krillin's really busy with his drama club all the time."

"I'm not sure any of the subjects are really easier than the others, and you're basing this on what the top cohort at a top school are choosing. Most of them aren't looking for the easiest ride. I actually think the next stream down has about ninety percent of the class focussing on something post-1900, and then a couple of medievals, and then the third class is different again. But if you don't mind asking people who aren't good friends, most of our class could help you with something medieval or Roman, and you could crib off Vegeta if you wanted to look at the tsars. If he was in a nice mood he could help you with the French Revolution, too."

"He hasn't been in a nice mood for weeks."

"He hasn't been in a nice mood for his entire life."

"Wow!" Goku pressed his index fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. "Do you know, it's really sudden but I think I just discovered an incredibly strong hidden passion for science and suffragettes!"

"I thought you might."


	9. Chapter 9: Maybe He's Incompatible

Look at that! Less than a month, even! Thank you to Seren McGowan and Lady Lan for the lovely reviews and also to new reader Lola. I'm glad the pacing's okay; this is an early attempt at fanfiction for me, and the 'genre' tends towards different pacing expectations than more traditional mediums, as far as I see. So that was a long-winded way of saying THANKS.

**Chapter Nine: Maybe He's Incompatible**

Goku stomped the ice from his boots crossly. He had walked down from the school this weekend because the roads were too slick for cycling, only to find that his journey was for no purpose; Grandpa Gohan had decked the halls and trimmed the tree without him. Their usual tradition was to do this on the 15th; ten days before Christmas, but the date fell mid-week this year and Goku had assumed his grandfather would hold out for the following weekend, so they could share it together.

To make matters worse, his parents were there, and the look of incredulity (and maybe even contempt) they fixed upon him when he childishly demanded all the decorations be taken down so he could help put them back up erased from him all the courage he'd saved up to confront them about the mysterious school results. He'd backed down from wanting everyone to redo the decorations for him, then backed out of lunch and backed right out of the house. If his parents were staying in town for Christmas Goku was almost glad his birthday fell on the last day he'd be required to stay at school. He wasn't ready to find out what kind of birthday plans they'd come up with if he were at home.

The walk back up to the school was all the more lonely for having chosen in anger to do it. By the time he was halfway there, Goku was wishing he were back in his nice, warm house eating a nice, hot lunch with the people who were – like it or not – his family. He'd gotten back just in time to grab one of the last hot lunches coming out of the cafeteria kitchen, but not early enough to eat with any of his friends. Now he was standing outside in the cold again, trying to find something to do.

Fixtures had been cancelled when, that morning, the usual cold, gusty December rain had turned into an unexpected snowfall, which turned the school grounds into a twee postcard scene that had the youngest year levels itching for a snow fight and a few foreign students from sunnier climes snapping pictures to send home.

By now, the perfect painting had melted away into slushy mud, punctuated with a few remaining piles of gritty snow. It was miserable weather, and Goku wished Krillin was here so the tall boy could tell his friend how, for once, Vegeta would be finding a positive where Goku wasn't – for Vegeta, one less rugby fixture played right now was one less missed, as although he was ambulatory again he was still being banned from games.

The ban wasn't stopping him, as Goku had found out that morning. Vegeta had stormed into their study bedroom at four in the morning, soaking wet, punched a half-sleeping Goku in the shoulder and announced "it's fucking snowing" before going back to bed. He'd been running, Goku supposed, except that, truthfully, at the time he was supposing things more along the lines of 'I bet I could strangle him to death in his sleep' or 'I bet if I had a terminal illness they'd let me sleep in the medical bay every night instead of in here; I bet I could fake some kind of terrible heart disease or something'. But those were the sort of suppositions one felt guilty about afterwards, so Goku wouldn't think about them too much.

Nobody was stopping by out here to chat, so Goku headed back into the converted manor house that formed the main school building and followed his instincts all the way to the student kitchens. It wasn't entirely frivolous; he'd left some books down there. Although Goku's Food Studies class had no practical lessons this term, he'd quickly discovered that the kitchens were a usually unattended quiet place to get some study in whilst also baking oneself some delicious muffins.

Apparently somebody else had discovered this same secret, because when Goku opened the door to the kitchen there was already somebody sitting behind his countertop.

"Uh, hi."

"Oh, hey," Chichi looked up and gave him a vague smile.

"Are you, uh, doing anything?" He didn't really want to admit, if he didn't have to, that the utensils drawer she was sitting in front of was actually stuffed full of his Sports Science notes.

"Just hiding out. 18's got a hit out on me."

"What? Really?" Goku's voice was alarmed.

"No! Not really." She bit her bottom lip and tilted her head to the side. "You couldn't seriously think she'd put a hit out on me."

Goku shrugged defensively. "Well I don't know. Some of the people here do weird stuff all the time. I don't know if any of you rich people have the kind of connections to put a hit on somebody. It could happen."

"You know, you're a 'rich people' too."

He scratched his head. "Yeah, I guess you're right, but I've not got as much as practice as the rest of you." Goku looked around the room. "So you're just hiding from 18 in here? How come she won't find you?"

"Too cold." Chichi was probably right. The only working classrooms this basement level housed were kitchens. Since they tended to gain heat from the ovens when they were in use, the heating and insulation for the level was a little less comfortable than the rest of the main building, or any of the newer buildings. The petite girl was still swathed in her outdoor coat to sit around there, and Goku hadn't taken his off, either.

"I guess." Goku stared at the drawer full of his stuff, hoping that if he stared for long enough the drawer would shoot open and his books and papers would fly up into his arms so he could make an escape.

"Any time you want to stop staring at my crotch would be fine, Goku."

"What?" Goku blinked and Chichi folded her arms across her chest. He noted the important fact that the stool she sat upon placed her lap exactly at the level of the drawer he had been so intent on. "No, uh, I just was staring at the drawer." He pointed.

"Right."

"Really! I wouldn't stare at your … parts. I wouldn't even look at them! Not even if you were naked! I mean, okay, maybe if you were naked because why would you be naked if you didn't want people looking at your parts, unless you were in a shower maybe but I wouldn't be in the room if you were having a shower so that wouldn't matter, but I mean I wouldn't look if you were embarrassed or something, but I'm sure you haven't got anything to be embarrassed about, but I wouldn't look anyway because I'm not that kind of guy, not that I'm gay or anything but I'm just polite, which is different, but basically I wouldn't look at your bits is what I mean; I wouldn't even look at your boobs."

Okay, he'd gotten off track there. Time for damage control. "I just, I _need_ that drawer. It's important to me."

"Oookay." Chichi hopped off the stool and walked towards the door. She stopped and patted Goku on the shoulder before leaving. "I'll just give you two some alone time," she whispered.

"Okay, wait," Goku started, but she was already out the door and heading up to the ground floor. He sprinted out and followed her up, poking his head out of the stairwell to see her walking down the corridor. It was fairly crowded, so he yelled. "Chichi!" She turned around and he cupped his hands around his mouth to make himself more easily heard. "I am not sexually involved with a drawer!"

* * *

"Mean trick."

Krillin looked up, eyes bleary from staring at the computer screen for so long. 18 stood just inside the computer lab with her hands on her hips and her chin thrown back just enough to give the impression of superiority, not enough to make it too obviously intentional.

"Huh?"

"Mean trick." She crossed the room with a couple of long-legged strides and clicked off Krillin's monitor. "You and Chichi; getting Vegeta to move the debating schedule. Side-stepping me completely."

"Oh. Is that how she did it?" Krillin drummed his fingers nervously on the desk. "I was kind of hoping she just had a really nice talk with you and you'd both become best friends forever."

"Yeah, right."

"Yeah okay on second thoughts, that would be terrible. Then you'd just both be out to get me as a team."

18 flicked a few pale, pin-straight hairs out of her face and continued looking at him with that cool stare. Krillin gulped.

"Look, I asked Chichi to organise the times with you and I thought she'd do that, but I'm not responsible if she fixed it up some other way." And besides, he added silently, it was weeks ago. Get over it. Even as he thought that he felt guilty and flustered, as though he'd actually had the balls to say it out loud.

"Whatever." The way she sighed conveyed effortlessly just how tedious she thought talking to Krillin was. Great. Nice. Quick, he told himself, say something funny and likeable to make her realise what an awesome guy you are. His vocal cords had other ideas, and instead produced a small whining sound in the back of his throat. Krillin hoped she hadn't heard that. "I have places to be," she told him in that smooth voice. She pointed at him. "But I've got my eye on you, Charlie Brown."

She stalked out the door and, a full minute after she was gone, Krillin managed to make his mouth work. "Hey, I like Peanuts, too."

* * *

"Goku, please! I am trying to wrap presents here."

"Yeah, it's kind of hard to miss."

Bulma was sitting in the centre of her own private disaster area, located in the corner of the sciences library. Around her, in a radius of at least a metre, wrapping paper, cellophane, novelty sticky tape and gift tags littered the ground.

"Is there one for me?" Goku asked, poking a cardboard box with his foot.

"Not in that box," she replied. "I already wrapped it so it's over here."

Goku made an excited noise and crouched down to get a closer look at the small parcel.

"I just got you one present for Christmas and birthday."

"Can I have it now?" he asked eagerly. "I won't open it."

"Of course you will," Bulma scoffed. "You can have it on the last day of school."

"What is it?"

"I'm not telling you what––"

"It's a watch!" Maron's pretty face peeped out from behind a set of shelves. "A nice watch. I saw her wrap it."

A muscle under Bulma's eye twitched and her grip on the present tightened.

"Woah," Goku told her. "Careful there. Don't break my new watch. I haven't even got to wear it yet."

Bulma fixed him with a look that could sink ships, then turned it on Maron. "Get _lost_, Maron."

"Sorry." Maron shoved the fingernails of one hand between her teeth and gave them a meek wave with the other. "I'll just be going."

"What kind of watch is it?" Goku asked when Maron had retreated.

"It's the kind where you take it and you _shove it up your arse_." She threw the little box at him. It hit his forehead and dropped into his waiting hands. "Get out of here. Go on. Shoo!"

"I wanted to ask you about that website, though. You said you were looking at it but that was weeks ago and – "

"_Go. Away_." Bulma picked up a tape dispenser to throw at him and Goku quickly retreated with his present in tow.

* * *

"Krillin, I found you."

Goku bounced into the computer lab. He felt full of pent-up energy today. It hadn't occurred to him until now just how accustomed he'd become to having a duty-packed, highly regimented weekend. Without fixtures or games practice or informal tutoring from his friends or even a visit home to occupy his day, Goku was going nuts.

"You sure did. Glad for an excuse to stop working on this stupid sociology essay." Krillin swung around in his chair and leant an elbow on the desk. "What's up?"

Goku placed his gift on the desk and sighed. "Chichi Mao thinks I have sex with utensil drawers."

Krillin blinked. "Not sure what you want me to say about that, buddy." Goku shrugged. "What's in the box?"

"That's my present from Bulma. Maron says it's a watch."

"Can I see?"

"Oh, I'm not opening it until my birthday."

"Did Maron say what kind of watch?"

Goku cast a sidelong look at the box. He bit his lip. He tried to resist. "Okay, I'm opening it now."

Moments later he was wearing a heavy watch, shiny and new. "Nice watch," Krillin commented.

"Better than my old one," Goku agreed.

"Any watch would be better than your old one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Goku protested, snatching up the old watch protectively.

"Goku, it's a plastic watch with a Superman logo on it. There aren't many watches less respectable."

"Everybody respects Superman, Krillin. _Everybody_."

"Ah, not Lex Luthor." Krillin leant back in his chair triumphantly. "He sees straight through Superman's crap, thanks to the amazing powers of insight granted to him by being bald and moneyed up." He ran a hand over his own smooth scalp.

"Krillin, Lex Luthor is a _bad guy_."

Krillin shrugged. "The bad guys are always popular."

"Bad guys are _evil_. And they always lose. If I was a superhero I'd definitely want to be Superman."

"I always wondered how Superman ever even did it with Lois. How does he control his super strength and speed? How do we even know he has the same junk as a human guy? Maybe he's got super junk. Or maybe he's incompatible."

"Argh." Goku tugged at his unruly hair. "I've been wearing a Superman watch for eight years and I've managed never to think about the fact that he's a super powered alien hitting it with a regular lady. You've ruined Superman for me. You've ruined my _life_."

"Lucky you've got that other watch now, then."

Goku pouted.

"Seriously though, how do any superheroes manage to make it with the ladies? I mean aside from the ones without any powers, like Batman. Because surely they lose some measure of control at some point there. Like 'wa-hoah, sorry lady, I did just accidentally turn into ice at the end there, or set myself on fire or radically change size or shoot lasers out my butt or whatever'. There'd be a lot of messy mistakes before they got the hang of it."

"Oh man, why do you even think about this stuff? You're seriously weird."

"Oolong and I have had this discussion before. Oolong thinks that Superman couldn't have sex without a super condom because when he finished, his–"

"Stop stop stop stop stop! I've got to go now. I've got to go to my room and mourn my childhood."

Krillin laughed. "Have fun with that."

"You're the worst friend ever."

* * *

It was hard to really hone your powers of put-upon brooding in a room that also contained Vegeta. Goku tried to use this injustice to further his own aura of resentment, but it was useless. Nobody could do aimless teenage fury like Goku's room-mate and, to be honest, he wasn't even feeling very sulky any longer.

"You should stop working," Goku said, falling back onto his bed and completely abandoning his attempts to pout and brood. "It's nearly holidays. No school for a month!"

Vegeta glared at Goku out of the corners of slitted eyes. Goku knew the act of taking his eyes off his work was a big concession for Vegeta. "Don't you have assignments to finish, Kakarrot? Exams to study for?"

"Well, yeah." He rolled onto his stomach. "But I know you don't. I've basically been living with you for like three months so you can't tell me you don't finish off your assignments at least a week before they're even due."

"I have four end of term examinations."

"Really? I don't have any. Just assignment stuff."

"Even if I didn't have these exams, _some of us_ have the sense to be working more generally towards our overall coursework."

Goku laughed. "I know my limits. I've got enough trouble getting through my assigned work without trying to jump ahead to some dumb exams I won't even have to write for until about two year's time. It's not like I want to go to some fancy university. I'd just like to do well enough to get in somewhere and be a P.E. teacher or something. Focus on my sports while I'm still young enough to be real awesome at them."

Vegeta made a scoffing noise.

"Hey, come on, there's nothing wrong with knowing what I'm good at and what I'm not. It's not like I'm totally useless. I could outrun you in a three-k on the track, any day."

"Is that a challenge?" Vegeta came over all attentive and Goku sat up uncomfortably.

"Uh, no? Not really. I mean it would be kind of a dumb one."

"Of course it's a dumb challenge. I'll beat you easily."

"Um..." Goku scratched at the back of his head and tugged at his ear, trying to think of the right words. "You kind of won't. I mean it's like if I tried to race you in a sprint or eight hundred metres or something; you'd be over the line before I was off the blocks. It doesn't make much sense to race each other when we run different distances. That's all."

Somehow those hadn't been the right words, although Goku couldn't think of what he should have said differently. Vegeta's face had set into an ugly scowl (worse even than the usual) and Goku had a horrible feeling in his stomach that for all his attempts to make a friend of Vegeta, he'd somehow found instead a self-defeating rival.

"Just because I am not in the habitual practice of running that distance competitively doesn't mean I _couldn't_ do it if I wanted to," Vegeta snarled. "I run further than that every night, for training. We'll race at the beginning of next term."

"What? No, you aren't listening. I don't want to race you. There's no way to make it fair to both of us."

"And here I thought you were always so _dreadfully keen_ to run with me." He turned back to his work and the shoulder obscuring his face might as well have been a brick wall.

"That's just practice running. It's different. I don't want to actually compete against you. Come on."

The wall stayed up; Vegeta ignored him. Great. Now, when Goku got sick of spending a month at home he could look forward to coming back to school and making his room-mate hate him – even more than the guy already hated the rest of the world.


	10. Chapter 10: That Daredevil Look

Thank you to Lon Wolfgood, Seren McGowan and Lady Lan for the reviews, as well as to anybody who has added the story to their alerts or favourites.

If I were to divide this story up into sections, the previous chapter would be the end of Part One and this would be the beginning of Part Two.

**Chapter Ten: That Daredevil Look**

"Why do you want to race Goku so badly, anyway?"

Bulma took a drag on her cigarette and watched Vegeta tie up his sneakers. The early cold snap of December had faded into an unseasonably warm January that had everybody shedding their bulky parkas weeks before school was back in session, and they were at an age when, each year, the ritual removal of the obscuring winter gear revealed your friends to be just a little more adult than you remembered them. An age at which you noticed these things and it was both awkward and fluttery nice.

And there was no harm in admitting to oneself that an (sort of almost maybe if he tried to be a bit nicer once in a while) old friend had nice arms when he stretched them all the way out like that. No harm in admitting that he'd filled out a lot through the shoulders and chest since the last time you'd seen him without a winter coat.

"I don't want to race him." He gave the laces a final, violent tug and sat back up. "I want to beat him."

"What a dumb way to start the term."

"I didn't ask for your opinion," he snapped.

"Well I'm giving it anyway." She dropped the cigarette and watched it fall away between the bleachers to fizzle out on the ground, still hard and cold. "Do you know what I think?"

"I don't care what you think." He was audibly grinding his teeth.

"I think you spend so much time trying to be a winner that you don't have any way to define yourself other than your accomplishments." She leant back and smiled smugly.

"What the fuck." His voice dropped down to a low growl and a voice, located strangely low, low, low in her belly, told her he couldn't do _that_ before the holidays. "Have you been taking 'stupid philosophical advice' lessons from Kakarrot? And if you're going to criticise me about how I 'define myself' or any other metaphysical hippie bullshit, maybe you should try developing personality for yourself beyond 'I don't wear pants and I like to tell people I'm a genius'."

"Well," she said, and shrugged. "I _am_ a genius."

He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the unattended track, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward, lost now to some thought known only to him. Bulma thought about her vow to Oolong and the others, that she could seduce Vegeta. She'd all but forgotten about it, and she knew they wouldn't remember it either, but right now he wasn't wearing a jacket and he must be terribly cold but he looked so determined and she could see his shoulder blades against his t-shirt and wasn't it funny how his hands were brown but his arms were pale where he'd spent all winter outdoors in a jacket and and and impulsively, she reached out and rested her palm on his back, between his shoulders.

The moment was gone, then, and he twisted around to look at her with that same blank look he'd already perfected by the time he'd started at Orange Star, aged eleven. She'd never figured out what that look actually meant.

"There was a bug on your shirt," she told him, after a long silence. "I chased it away."

He stared at her a little longer; she wondered what he was thinking.

"Are you going to move your hand?"

"Yes." A beat, and then she did so. He kept staring. "I'm going to go see if Goku's here."

She bounded down the bleachers and crossed the track to the exit closest to the main school. Her hand felt very warm. She tried not to look back, but then she did.

He wasn't watching her, anyway.

* * *

As much as Goku liked winning, this was a lousy way to finish off what had been a great holiday. With his head down between his knees and his chest heaving with exhaustion he offered Vegeta a sweaty hand to shake and a hearty "good race", but the shorter boy turned away as though Goku had hit him.

"I mean it," Goku panted, "I didn't think it'd be that close." He straightened up, hands on his waist as he tried to regulate his breathing. "For a while there I thought you had me. Lucky for me I've got the longer legs, huh?"

"Don't patronise me," Vegeta spat, and Goku knew no attempt to mitigate the situation was going to make living with Vegeta any easier. He'd spent a good half hour that morning, while he unpacked clothes into his shared bedroom, considering throwing the race, but in the end he'd decided that Vegeta was too smart not to notice a ploy like that, and it would only make things worse.

_Besides_, he thought secretly, guiltily,_ I really _like _winning_.

"Next time we'll race your distance, right?"

Vegeta gave him a dark look – a murderous look – and stomped off to the change rooms. Goku would sleep with his eyes open tonight.

* * *

"You should've just thrown it," Yamcha informed him lazily from where he lay stretched out across a couch in their common room. "That guy will never forgive you. You know he's been holding a grudge against Bulma since first form for being better at maths than him?"

Goku's mouth twisted to one side. "I thought they were friends. Sort of, anyway."

"Bulma and Vegeta? Nah. She hates the guy."

Goku didn't say anything but a vertical line appeared between his eyebrows. Yamcha laughed. "Don't really know why she spends time with him either, man. She's just morbid, I guess. Likes to know what makes things tick."

"Maybe Bulma knows how I can make him tick in a way that doesn't involve suffocating me with my pillow while I sleep."

Yamcha shrugged. "You should relax, Goku. Enjoy this one day without classes. Noses to the grindstone tomorrow."

"You didn't see the look he gave me, Yamcha. I don't think I'm going to live to see tomorrow."

There was a big, red hand print on his perfectly smooth scalp.

Even while Krillin tried to remember if he'd brought any hats other than those for the uniform, he felt a sort of perverse pride in the painful swelling on his head. That wasn't just any old hand print. That was the hand print of 18 Gero. There was a part of him that wanted to take a pen and write "18 GERO" in big black letters right in the middle of it so everybody would know that she'd _touched_ him, if only because she was somehow enraged by his saying "hello" as she entered the school today.

The fact remained that she had chosen to slap him around, instead of just using that disdainful look she ordinarily employed. The fact remained that today, he was special.

Seriously, though, he was going to have to cover that up with a hat.

"Really? I thought you were going to throw it, to be honest."

Goku grimaced and tugged at his hair. "Oh man, does everyone think I should've just lost? This is the worst."

Bulma shrugged. "I'm not saying what you should or shouldn't have done. I just didn't know you were that set on winning. I should've stayed. Laughed at him at the end and all that."

_I like winning, too!_ he wanted to say. _I'm a winner! Why do people think I don't care about winning?_

Instead, he said, "well, it's done now, so I just want to know if there's any way I can make him want to be friends again."

"I'm not his psychiatrist", she snapped, then immediately dialled down on the temper. "Were you guys even friends before?"

Goku shrugged. "I don't want to toot my own horn too much or anything, but I reckon he liked me better than the people he actually hangs out with."

Bulma snorted. "Big deal. He hates them."

"Maybe I should just sleep in the woods tonight," Goku sighed, wondering how his grand plans for friendship had devolved into this desperation to just not get murdered before he was ever even legal to drink.

"Good plan."

18 was furious. She'd been furious since the beginning of the month; since she and her brother had their birthday. He was a year older but their birthdays fell within three days of one another, so they always celebrated them together, on the day between. One of 17's gifts had been the chance to spend this term studying abroad. He'd been thrilled. She'd been aghast. It had completely ruined her own birthday celebrations.

No part of her wanted to admit she needed her brother to operate. No part of her wanted to give further ammunition to idiots like Vegeta, whose face still looked to her the way it had, sniggering at age 13, when he'd given her a copy of Nabokov's _Ada or Ardor_ as a late birthday gift and told her he thought it was 'relevant to her interests'. No part of her wanted to concede anything to whoever it was who had taken his lead and wrapped a V.C. Andrews to leave outside her dormitory with a 'happy birthday' card each January since.

But now 17 wasn't here and she felt like half of 18 had gone with him.

It wasn't something sick or perverted, despite what her anonymous gift-giver might like to insinuate. She'd just never been close to her father; never even known her mother. 17 was like her whole family. The last time she'd been separated from him for any extended period was the year he began at Orange Star and she was stuck at home without him. At ten years old it had seemed like nothing else could ever be worse than having her best friend stolen away from her like that, knowing that he must miss her just as much as she missed him.

She'd been wrong, of course. Having him gallivanting off across the continent without her of his own free will, knowing that he was having the time of his life and didn't care a fig what she was doing or thinking or feeling, was much worse.

"Hello 18, are you coming in?" Mai peered out from their room, where she was brushing her curtain of dark hair repetitively. "Did you have a nice birthday?"

18 thought she detected something disgustingly smug in her room-mate's tone. "Is this you?" She snatched the wrapped book from in front of the door and held it up.

"No, it's a gift. Looks like a book."

18 narrowed her eyes. "Don't play dumb with me. Are you the one who keeps giving me these?"

Mai put down her hair brush and shook her head.

"Is it your stupid ginger boyfriend?"

"I don't _have_ a ginger boyfrie—"

"I don't care about your personal life. Is Shu the one who keeps sending me creepy incest novels?"

Mai looked at the package warily. "If anybody I know has been buying incest novels, they haven't told me."

"Well," 18 tossed the package onto Mai's bed and turned her nose up. "Tell him that if it is him I will cut off his balls."

"Tell him yourself. Why would he want to send you—"

"That is, if he even has any. Tell me, Mai, does he?"

The dark haired girl frowned. "I don't know! I told you, he's not my—"

"I'm going for a walk. You can have the book."

"Thanks," Mai muttered, after 18 had closed the door behind her. "Just what I always wanted. A novel romanticising incest.

"'_Oh, no problem_'" she continued, in a too-squeaky impersonation of her room-mate. "'_And might I just say thank you, Mai, for all the knives you put in my mattress. I really slept _so_ much better once I'd bled out_.'

"No need to thank me, 18. The whole school already did when they realised you were dead."

She opened the window and dropped the book out, where it landed on top of a passing brunette.

"Hey!" the girl protested, turning her eyes upwards and spotting Mai where she leant out of the window. She rubbed her head where the book had hit it. "What the hell?"

"Sorry," Mai replied. "18 Gero gave me that book but I don't want it because it's apparently about incest. Sibling incest. But she said it's _really good_, if you want to read it and tell all your friends she said that. Thanks." She pulled her head back inside and slid the window closed.

The brunette opened the package.

Goku made it through the night alive. He attributed this to the fact that he didn't see his room-mate even once since The Race. It was still with some relief that he settled in a few minutes early for his first ever Food Studies lesson in the kitchens. Finally!

He was flipping through the study booklet from last term when the rest of his classmates began flowing into the room, but was interrupted when a stack of books landed next to him on the counter with a crash.

Looking up, Goku met the puffy, angry eyes of a particularly intimidating Chichi Mao.

"Uh, hi."

"I just had an enormous fight with Melody," she snapped, "so I've been left without a partner. You're it. If you look like dragging down my grade I swear to god I will not hesitate to throw you under the bus at the first opportunity."

He swallowed heavily. "I really like food."

Her face twisted into an expression somewhere between confusion and horror. "You are aware the assessment is almost entirely written and theory-based?"

"Yeah," Goku pouted. "They made that pretty clear last term. I swear there's a subject with the same name at my old school and all those kids do is cook stuff for two years. This school is supposed to _better_, not worse."

"Maybe I should go see if Melody wants to be partners, after all."

"What? No, hey, I'm a good partner. I work real hard. What are you guys fighting about, anyway?"

"She's trying to get me to read some kind of incest porn."

"Oh." Goku wondered how he hadn't noticed Melody was _that kind of a girl_, and why Chichi (who seemed like she definitely wasn't _that kind of a girl_) would have chosen her, of all the people here, to call a friend. Furthermore, he wondered how people who were into incest porn fit into his plan to be friends with everybody in the whole school.

"Maybe she's forgotten about it, or realised not everybody wants to read incest porn. Or found some other victim."

"Why has she got incest porn? What's wrong with her? Is she demented or something?"

"Excuse me? Did you just call one of my close, personal friends 'demented'? Because I could have sworn that's what I heard you say, utensil boy."

Her eyes looked dangerous and Goku shrank away automatically. "Uh, no? Sorry." He'd kind of been hoping the holidays would erase her memory of that whole drawer fiasco.

The dangerous eyes rolled. "Wow, it's so manly the way you just back down like that."

Goku shrugged and smiled. "I don't want to fight with a girl when she's feeling mean. You girls've got no compunctions about aiming below the belt."

"Oh, 'compunctions'. Have you been saving that one up, bright spark?"

"Sure have!" He beamed brightly. "Now I've just got to find a place to use 'avuncular'. I'm expanding my vocabulary, you know."

Chichi lifted a hand to her mouth and laughed. The danger fled from her eyes. "You're either funny or sweet, but I'm not sure which because I can't tell whether you're serious."

"I'll take both, thanks."

By lunchtime a series of A4 booklets produced in one of the school libraries had taken the lower sixth form by storm. Entitled '_18 Gero's Favourite Moments In Literature_' (and being presently rebranded as '_17 Gero's Favourite Moments In Literature_' to meet the needs of the upper sixth form audience) it consisted of several different extracts, photocopied from paperback novels and collated without any more framework than the six word title on the front page.

"Apparently Melody Kaczka got this one book on personal recommendation from 18 herself, and it was just full of this shit," Oolong told Goku, his already pink face flushed with excitement from the scandal.

"Wait, is this incest porn?" Goku poked the sheaf of papers where they lay on the grass. "Chichi was telling me Melody kept trying to get her to read incest porn."

"Let's just say the brothers and sisters in the story are _particularly loving_ and leave it at that." Instead of leaving it at that Oolong added a lecherous snicker and faked a big stretch, leaning back against the low stone wall they were sitting in front of, trying to get a peek up Maron's skirt. Bulma kicked him in the ear.

"I don't think I want to read this," Goku said.

"It's like a fatal motor accident. You know you shouldn't look, but you just can't tear your eyes away," Yamcha told him. Krillin said nothing.

The four boys were seated on the ground in one of the school's grassed courtyard, having taken their hot lunches from the cafeteria to enjoy outside in the warm (for January) weather. Behind them, Bulma and Maron perched on a wall with Lunch, having come over all demure again during the holidays, rounding out the trio of blunettes.

"It's morbidly fascinating," Bulma agreed.

"I didn't read it," Lunch said piously.

"I thought it was sad," Maron said.

"Because 18's such a pervert?" Yamcha asked.

"Because their love was so forbidden, yet so true," she replied, sternly.

Bulma made a gagging noise and the hand gestures to go with it. Lunch politely wrinkled her nose.

"The universe has never been so glad you're an only child," Bulma told Maron.

"It isn't true!" Krillin exclaimed, all the words tumbling out of his mouth at once as he leapt to his feet.

"Oh, no," Maron told him. "I really am an only child."

"What? That's not what I meant. I mean I don't think 18 reads those kind of books."

"Lots of people read them," Yamcha replied, "or they wouldn't be getting published. I'm sure she doesn't actually have creepy sex with her brother, but that doesn't mean she doesn't like that kind of book."

"I just don't think she'd read that kind of thing," the bald boy huffed. "I mean it's not even well-written."

"Pshaw." Oolong waved a hand dismissively. "You're just saying that because you're hot for her. It's not like she's going to notice you just because you go around defending her base tendencies."

"Hey Krillin." Krillin turned to look at Goku. "Maybe 18 would notice you if you grew your hair."

"Oh, maybe!" Maron said. "Not everyone likes bald heads."

"You have to have the right shaped head to go bald," Lunch added.

"Hey, I like my bald head."

"You don't have the right shaped head." Maron tapped her index finger against her lips thoughtfully. "Your ears are all wrong."

"What's wrong with my ears?"

"You know who has the right shaped head?" Lunch whispered in Bulma's ear.

"Besides, it's not like you're the only boy in our year with a shaved head, these days. It's just not unique any more."

"Those guys copied me! I made this cool." Krillin pointed to his head with both hands and Maron shook her head sadly.

"Tien Shinhan has a nice shaped head."

"You don't think I look cool? You liked this look last year."

"Oh my god Krillin, I was like fifteen when we went out. I hope I'm a little more mature than that now."

"Guys, guys," Bulma made hushing motions with her hands, which were roundly ignored. "Guys, can we get a little quiet? Lunch is trying to lust after Tien's bald head, here."

Lunch's face flushed bright red. "No I'm not I have to go here have my sandwiches no sense in wasting them." She stood up and hurried off for a few steps, then turned around and narrowed her eyes. "And I hope you choke on them, Bulma Briefs!" She scurried off into one of the buildings.

There was silence for a moment, then Krillin spoke. "I hate that guy, Tien. He's a dick. He stole my bald look."

"I'm over bald and now I'm into guys with long hair. Like, growing it out longer than regulation. That's so rebellious."

Yamcha unconsciously flicked his own hair around.

"You said bald was rebellious. Bald's rebellious."

"And scars. I'm really feeling scars right now."

Bulma squinted at Maron evilly.

"Especially, like, sexy facial scars. That whole _daredevil_ look."

Bulma pushed her off the wall backwards and stole her orange juice.


	11. Chapter 11: Second Place

Thank you for reviews from Lady Lan, Seren McGowan, catgirl26 and Shades of Crimson. I'm glad people are liking the way I'm writing Goku (although this chapter is a little light on in the Goku department) particularly since he's probably my least favourite character, so writing a story where he's so central was always a bit of a gamble. I'm not sure if I'll do a drunken party scene in the future; I've not planned it all down to that level, but it's possible.

I think this chapter is not all that funny (and a little short) because a good half of it is another Vegeta and Bulma hanging out in the woods scene, but I hope you guys will enjoy it anyway.

**Chapter Eleven: Second Place**

"Hey, uh, 18?"

"What?" she snapped, whirling around with her eyes flashing, showing possibly the most animation Krillin had ever seen from her off a sports field.

"Er, well, ah, see, the thing is, um…." he twisted the booklet between his hands nervously.

"I don't have time to stand here listening to you stutter." She turned and began following in the tracks of the other students, all of whom had already made their way from the dinner hall to their various prep rooms.

"Well, okay, um," he licked his lips. "It's just that, ah, this has been going around and I wasn't sure if anybody had even shown it to you yet or anything and I just thought you should know what people were saying about you, I guess."

She looked back at him with eyes so angry they were nothing more than dark slits in her face. She slapped the booklet from his grip and let it fall to the floor.

"Either you are terminally stupid or you have chosen a ridiculously convoluted way of attempting to mock me."

He swallowed hard. "I'm not mocking you. I, um…." Where was the eloquent, funny Krillin? Where did he go whenever 18 looked at him? He'd had a plan for how this was going to go down, for what he was going to say, and it wasn't anything like how things had actually happened. It was really incredibly inconsiderate for all the intelligent, personable parts of him to run for the hills the moment she locked eyes, leaving behind only stupid, fumbling … Charlie Brown.

Oh, god, that name was sticking even in his own mind. He should just give up. Stop talking to her. Admit to himself that his subconscious was never going to stop pulling away that football at the last damn minute.

"I have received no less than eight of these booklets. You're a little slow off the mark."

"I just, um, I just," he half-jogged to catch up with her, taking two steps for each of her long strides. "I just wanted to tell you that I don't believe it. I don't believe you read that kind of thing or have any kind of weird stuff going on with your brother. I don't believe that kind of thing. About you, I mean."

"You probably should", she said in her usual emotionless affect and Krillin could have sworn he felt his heart stop pumping for a full thirty seconds, at least, while he tried to process the comment. She stopped walking to watch him flail about, incapable of even basic respiratory or circulatory function. "I can't see any reason people wouldn't believe it. I do spend all my time exclusively in the company of my brother, after all."

Krillin thumped at his chest and attempted to adopt normal operating procedures.

"After all," she continued, "everybody knows if you spend a lot of time with someone there's no possible reason other than sex. You, for instance, must be having a hell of a time with your little pig farmer friend and that new boy."

He wheezed. "Oh man, 18, I've got to tell you, you need to work on some kind of tonal variation when you lay on the sarcasm. I nearly had an aneurysm there."

Krillin had dared to hope for a smile or some other sign of a crack in 18's icy façade, but she stared him down in stony silence for a moment more, then left for the prep hall at a brisk pace.

"But, hey, it was nice to hear you crack a joke", he told her retreating back.

* * *

Krillin had been doing some detective work. It had occurred to him that the detective work he'd promised to do was for Goku, and that it had fallen by the wayside somewhat. He brushed away those thoughts with a reminder that it was in Bulma's hands for now, and continued on with his unsolicited detecting only slightly guilty.

By Thursday he had worn down Mai. Krillin Chastain, Master Detective, had targeted her first simply because he couldn't actually think of any friends or close acquaintances 18 might have, and the room-mate was his only lead. Mai had initially attempted to redirect him towards the mysterious giver of 18's annual novels, or outright prevaricated under questioning, but when she'd cracked she had pointed straight towards Melody Kaczka as the unintended recipient of this year's book.

So Krillin was now switching his sights to Melody's group of friends. He was armed and ready to harass on this particular lunch break, having located them sitting indoors. Krillin had asked Goku to run backup but the taller boy had plead extreme not wanting to give up his eating time and refused to leave their lunch spot.

Krillin cunningly detected that Goku was feeling a little put out at all this master detecting not being focussed on his own mystery, but didn't have time to soothe his feelings right now.

"Melody!" Krillin announced boldly. "and Haski!" Neither of them looked particularly impressed. "and, ah, Chichi. Hi."

Chichi put down her plate and looked at Krillin flatly. They were no longer at each other's throats, with the distribution of power in the Theatre Club resolved, but Krillin doubted Goku's expansive friendship efforts could ever make the two anything more than coolly cordial colleagues.

She made him nervous.

"So, uh, the thing is that I've been told, Melody, that you got a book from Mai and I was wondering if it was you, then, who made that booklet. You know the one."

Melody shrugged and Chichi sat down next to her. Haski affected an elaborate yawn and stretched one arm above her head slowly, running the hand through her thick, blonde hair on its way up. The movement made her shirt strain against her chest and Krillin could see her bra through the space where the fabric pulled away in between buttons. He knew she was doing it on purpose, to tease or distract him, but could feel his eyes bugging out anyway. It was a purple bra and it was lacy.

Haski dropped her arm and sniggered. "Melody's not brave enough for anything like that."

"Ah-ha!" Krillin bounced onto the balls of his feet and pointed dramatically. "Then it was you!"

She shrugged. "Not exactly a secret."

"Oh."

"Probably half the form could have told you it was me."

"Oh."

This wasn't quite the way Krillin had imagined bringing the case to a close. In his head, things had been a lot more conspiracy theory. A lot more Sherlock Holmes without the crack. In his head, maybe 18 had been so grateful she'd dropped to her knees and pressed her cheek to his chest to gaze up at him adoringly and coo over his impressive insight and intellect.

Now that he examined them a little closer, perhaps his expectations had been too high to start.

* * *

"So anyway, I don't know if I should tell her it was Haski or if she already knows and she'd just laugh at me."

"Mm-hm. Yamcha and I have broken up."

"Uh, right, but what do you think about—"

"No, Krillin, I mean really. I'm going to look for a new boyfriend starting right now."

"Oh." It was obvious Bulma wasn't interested in helping Krillin with his 18 problem. It was, in fact, unusual for Bulma to actively look for new romantic interests during her 'off' times with Yamcha and he wondered if they really were serious this time. "Is that an invitation?"

"Ha. You never stop cracking jokes, do you? I kind of like that about you." She laid a friendly punch on his shoulder. Krillin grimaced. He had only been half joking.

"So how come the serious attitude this time?"

She shrugged and pulled her feet up under her on the couch. Before she could answer properly one of the doors opened. Vegeta headed straight for the kitchenette at the back of the common room but Goku wandered over and draped his arms over the back of their couch.

"Hey, you two kiss and make up, then?" Krillin regretted his boldness the instant Vegeta's dark gaze fell upon him. He cringed downwards as though the couch was a shield.

"Ha, gross," Goku chuckled, "really, though, Bulma what are you doing over here? Boys only."

"Whatever." She waved a hand in the air. "I'll come into your clubhouse if I feel like it and there's nothing you can do about it."

"We could get Roshi to kick you out", Krillin said.

Bulma shuddered. "You wouldn't though. I've just been telling Krillin how Yamcha and I have had a serious talk since coming back from our holidays and we've decided to call this break permanent. For real this time." This wasn't quite true just yet but, Bulma figured, it sure would be true soon if she snagged herself a newer, better boyfriend.

"Wow, why?" Goku was all wide eyes and open curiosity.

"We didn't see each other at all this holiday; didn't even call or text or email. It's the longest we've been out of contact since we started dating and we both just realised we didn't miss each other."

"You were your usual possessive self earlier this week, though. When did this talk actually happen?" Krillin asked.

"Well," she huffed, "just because I don't want him any more doesn't mean I want him to go running off with the first girl to shake her tits in his general direction. We weren't _officially_ broken up yet until yesterday." Regaining some composure (and confidence in her lie), Bulma continued. "Anyway, I don't plan to be boyfriend-less for long. I already have someone in mind." She smiled slyly and Krillin felt a little better about her earlier rejection of him. At least she would be rejecting him for someone specific, not just on principle.

Bulma continued with the smug smile for a while without speaking again. Goku continued to stare at her with rapt attention. He was just the sort to enjoy this sort of suspense-building pandering. Krillin had the feeling that Vegeta was watching him, or them, but when he looked over the other boy was just staring very studiously at a kettle.

"So what I'm getting at is: Goku, do you want to go out?"

Krillin let out an undignified squawk.

Goku made a horrified choking noise.

A couple of other boys looked up from across the room with incredulous expressions.

An entire box of teabags mysteriously upended itself on the kitchenette floor.

Bulma beamed expectantly and there was a sudden exodus from the room, leaving Goku to face her alone.

* * *

"Are you out here?"

An horrible, hateful, shrill voice assaulted Vegeta's ears. He hunkered down further, as though by making himself as small as possible he could become one with the tree at his back and disappear. He didn't want her to find him.

"Come on, I need someone to sulk with."

She was getting closer but if he moved she'd hear him walking and find him even more easily. He attempted to commune with the spirit of the tree and compel it to hide him. The spirit of the tree was probably thinking something like 'ha ha kid, maybe you shouldn't have stubbed out that cigarette on me ten minutes ago, you stupid punk' because it didn't seem interested in a healthy exchange of ideas.

"There you are!"

Her stupid, spiteful, ugly face appeared from among the trees. He hissed on an inwards breath and refused to acknowledge her. Maybe she would just go away.

She did not go away. She sat down directly opposite him and rested her chin in her hands, elbows on her knees.

"Are you still sulking about that dumb race?"

"No", he said and it was partly true. By now it was not so much the race as it was Kakarrot in general, and Vegeta wasn't quite sure why. Certainly he knew other people with an easy, casual attitude and certainly nearly everybody he knew found things came easily to them, and yet certainly he didn't hate anybody quite as much as he hated Kakarrot Son.

"I think you are."

"I don't care what you think", which was also partly true. He didn't care what she thought he was thinking about, but there were other things he would like to know what she thought on. He just wasn't sure what those things were, right now.

"We can both sulk about Goku together." She stretched her legs out in front of her. "He turned me down. Can you believe that?"

"Yes."

"Shut up. There's no reason he shouldn't want to go out with me. I'm cute and clever and we're already friends. I mean, he may be good-looking but he's seriously out of his league, intellect-wise, with anybody around here. He should be jumping at the chance to date me."

"You're over-rating yourself."

Bulma scowled. "Maybe I'm just under-rating his qualities. I mean, he is very tall and, oh gosh, _such_ a fast runner.

She waited.

"What? No comeback? Fine." She sighed and leant back against the nearest tree trunk. "Well, now that all the serious talk's out of the way, let's get down to the niceties. What did you do on your holidays? Go anywhere fun?"

"I stayed at home. I studied. I practised."

She screwed up her nose. "That's no fun. You should be having more fun than that on your holidays. What are your parents thinking?"

"They want what's best for me," Vegeta replied automatically. Even if he might secretly think holidays _were_ for doing fun things, the only person who was going to go around criticising his parents was him. And only in his head, where nobody could hear him. "It's not so bad. He says when he was my age his father employed a tutor during the holiday periods, so he wouldn't fall behind, so by comparison my holidays are very relaxed."

Bulma didn't say anything for a while and Vegeta thought if she said something else against his family he was going to hit her, girl or no girl.

"That's probably the least flattering thing I've ever heard you say about your family."

Vegeta wasn't sure how to reply to that. Eventually he settled upon "I am very lucky to be part of a family with such a proud ongoing heritage" which was something he'd discovered you could feel was more true if you repeated it to yourself on a regular basis.

"I'm pretty sure I've heard that from you before, verbatim. Doesn't change the fact that you spent your whole holiday slaving over something or other. As for me, I went cavorting across the countryside." He didn't ask for the details but she provided them anyway. "I was trying to run away a little bit but my parents just assumed I could look after myself and never even came looking."

She smiled at him, not a smug smile but a real one. It was a nice smile until he reminded himself that it was, in fact, a vile, execrable, loathsome smile.

"I guess we've got pretty much opposite families, hey? Yours regulate your every move even though you're sickeningly responsible anyway, and mine just place absolute trust in me even though I'm always trying to violate it by running off to parties with boys or whatever. I'd suggest we should swap but I kind of like doing whatever I like."

"I can do what I like." This was true, he reasoned. It's not like his parents could physically force him to study or run or ride a horse. If he really wanted to, he could just not do what his father said. The part of him that was more reasonable than the reason said it was a very different thing to think about all the things one could do and to be actually able to make yourself do them. The angry part of him, which was most of him, replied that he was able to do whatever the hell he wanted so that other part could just shut the fuck up and stop suggesting he was … whatever that part was trying to suggest.

"Oh, really? What would your daddy do if you ran off to a bunch of parties this weekend instead of studying or playing your sports?"

Vegeta hesitated. "Nothing much. He would just talk to me about it. He'd be angry." That was not just partly true, but absolutely true, and when he said it out loud like that Vegeta couldn't quite place why the idea filled him with so much dread. It was just talking when you said it like that, and there shouldn't be anything unsettling about talking with your own father.

Her forehead crinkled up in confusion. "I don't get it, then. If all he's going to do is talk at you, why slog away at things the way you do? You don't need to do even half the work you do to be at the top of the pile."

"No, I need to do twice the work", he spat. She straightened up in surprise. "I should be—I could be—the best at anything I put my mind to but I'm not. I'm not working too hard; I'm not even working hard enough."

He regretted the outburst immediately. Vegeta was working harder than ever since beginning sixth form and he felt like a spring in intense compression. Every moment of every day he just wanted to lash out and hit something, smash something, to relieve some of the tension. He'd originally thought it would wear off over the holidays but then, on top of his usual holiday work he'd added the failed attempt to train up for his race against Kakarrot and had come back to school more pent-up and frustrated than ever.

"How could you be working any harder?"

"I could be working right now, instead of sitting here listening to your bullshit."

"I think you need to relax."

"I don't need to relax." Now she stood up to face him and he wasn't sure how long he'd been pacing. He didn't stop pacing.

"You could at least stop shouting and walking about like that."

"I'm not shouting."

"Seriously, just settle down." She put a calming hand on his shoulder from behind and when he turned around to berate her for it she kissed him.

"That's two", she said when she pulled away, putting up two fingers. "Are you going to puke again?"

Vegeta held up two fingers of his own, mirroring her gesture. "That's second place." Her brow furrowed into a gently confused frown. "Because Kakarrot was your first choice."

Bulma watched him leave then tried to kick a tree to death.


	12. Chapter 12: Turnip Dudes

I'm sorry, Seren! I wanted to change a word in the first chapter and I didn't know how to do that without generating a chapter 12 notification. As a special consolation prize I've fast-tracked the real chapter twelve, just for you. Thank you, Lady Lan, for the _extremely_ flattering comments and you're right; that's how I often browse for things to read, too. I didn't add main characters originally because to choose two mains accurately would give someone browsing like that the impression I was pairing Goku with either Vegeta, Krillin or Bulma, depending on who I chose as the second. I think I will just add Vegeta and Bulma because they are my favourites. And Shades of Crimson, I am particularly pleased that you are reading because it's reminded me that High School Royalty was (along with that story by Princess_Panchii) one of the first high school fics I ever read (and loved). Takes me back!

**Chapter Twelve: Turnip Dudes**

"So, I heard a rumour."

Bulma groaned and let the novel she was reading fall across her face.

"Aren't you interested in hearing it?"

"No." Bulma could hear her room mate rummaging through drawers for a pair of pyjamas and removing her uniform. She really wished Ranfan would get changed in the bathrooms once in a while.

"I heard you and Goku were caught banging in the stables."

"What?" Bulma shrieked and sat bolt upright, her book falling away to the floor, forgotten. "No way. Who's saying that? I never."

"A lady never reveals her sources."

"A lady doesn't walk around shirtless."

"Yeah, okay, Taro told me at dinner. Is it true?"

"No, it's not true", Bulma snapped. "Ugh." She ran a hand through her hair which had, traitorous, returned to its natural frizzy state over the break. "What a mess. I just asked him out. He said no, but I guess I didn't want to go out with him anyway."

"Why'd you ask, then?" Ranfan wriggled out of her skirt and sat down on her bed in nothing but a bra and underpants.

"Well, why not? I mean he's tall and cute and seriously sweet. There's no reason I _wouldn't_ want to go out with him."

"I didn't even know you and Yamcha were broken up again. Maybe I'll make a move." She winked and puffed up her hair.

"We're not. I guess I was hedging my bets. You know, find something better before giving up what you've got. Yamcha always goes out with other girls when we're apart and I end up looking like some lonely loser. Whatever. I can't even imagine actually dating Goku, anyway."

"I've got to be imagining a lot more than dating before I'm going to ask someone out."

Ranfan wiggled her shoulders suggestively, which was a dangerous proposition in nothing more than a skimpy bra, and Bulma scowled. "Well there's nobody I'm imagining doing _that_ with."

"Well if you need some help choosing, I suppose I could furnish you with a list of who's best in the form."

"What?" Bulma squawked.

"At kissing, Bulma. I'm talking about kissing."

Bulma resumed breathing. "Oh. I thought you meant you'd, _you know_, with nearly everyone in our year."

"I'm not a slut", Ranfan protested, folding her legs in an attempt to look prim which would have been more successful if she'd been dressed. "I'm more of a tease. If it will help you out I'll try and assess your friend Goku's place on that particular ladder."

"Don't worry about it", Bulma told her darkly.

"Oh, it's no problem. I really don't mind."

"This is all such a mess, anyway. Everybody's so mad. Or going to be, when they find out. There's no way Krillin or somebody won't tell Yamcha."

"Not everybody will be mad. Only Yamcha. Let me know if he's mad enough that you two split up so I can get a look in before Maron makes a move."

"You're right. Nobody but Yamcha or I cares what happens in my love life." She sighed dramatically and flopped onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. "I've got such a kick-ass brain," she mumbled into it, "I wish sometimes I'd remember to use the damn thing."

* * *

"I just can't believe you turned down Bulma Briefs."

"Come on, Krillin. Whatever happened to you hating her and thinking she was too crazy to go near."

"I'm approximately one hundred percent sure that whatever I might have said about her personality, I have never ever claimed I wouldn't hit that."

Goku sighed and let his chin drop onto his desk. "Well I guess, um," he cast a furtive look around the classroom. It was still mostly empty; the first class of the day wouldn't start for a couple of minutes and people liked to linger over breakfast. "I guess I kind of already like someone. A bit. Maybe."

"Nice." Krillin thumped him on the back. "Who is it? No, wait, let me guess." The short boy closed his eyes and pressed a finger to each temple. "Okay, I'm seeing you as a … a redheads kind of a guy." Goku opened his mouth to protest but Krillin cut him off. "No, it's okay. I can respect that. Just give me a moment to think about some redheads." The fingers left his temples to drum thoughtfully against the desk. "Not Pippa, I don't think. Can't see you with a girl who has freckles. Zangya?"

"What?" Goku crinkled his nose. "No. No way. And what's your problem with freckles? I don't think—"

"Oh no." Krillin opened his eyes and Goku momentarily worried something might actually be wrong. "It's not …" he lowered his voice. "It's not _Snake_, is it?"

"No, you're way off base with all of your guesses. I couldn't date someone whose parents thought 'Snake' was a good name, although I don't really see what would be so much worse about her than Zangya. Isn't she supposed to be a princess of some far-off country? That's pretty cool, right? And she doesn't have freckles."

Krillin shook his head sadly. "She would eat you alive, my friend."

"It doesn't matter anyway, because I don't like any of those girls. I mean, I'm sure they're all nice but I don't want to go out with them."

"Fine, just tell me who it is."

Goku looked off to one side. "I can't."

"You can't."

"You'd be mad."

"Why would I be mad? I don't care _that_ much about who you like." Krillin thought about this for a moment. "Unless it's 18. I might be a little mad if it's 18, because I really think I'm starting to get somewhere. She looked at me at breakfast and I didn't feel any of my internal organs wither and die as a result of the experience, so I think she might be warming up to me. Laying off the death ray eyes."

"Ew, no, it's not 18."

"What's wrong with 18? She's not 'ew'. She's beautiful and intelligent and, uh, collected? Great legs."

"She's got knobbly knees."

"What?"

"Her legs aren't that great. She's got knobbly knees."

Krillin spluttered. "Knobbly knees? She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and you think she's not good enough to go out with because she's got 'knobbly knees'? I can't believe what I'm hearing."

"She's got knobbly knees and she's mean." Goku shrugged. "I mean, she's real pretty and all, and I hope you get her to go out with you, but she's not really my type." Krillin still looked affronted. "If it's any consolation, you wouldn't want to date the girl I like, either."

"Does she have freckles?"

"No, worse than that."

"Wait, is it that Melody girl? She has freckles _and _she's friends with _Chichi_. We've already eliminated all the redheads so that's where my money is."

Goku avoided meeting Krillin's eyes. "Worse than Melody, I reckon, but no freckles."

Krillin would have continued pressing for information but the rest of the class was filing into the room and it wasn't a public conversation. Instead, he occupied himself staring at 18 and wondering if he should tell her who had made the booklets about her. Haski seemed to think it was public knowledge, but that didn't mean anybody had told 18. If it were him, he'd want to know who the culprit was. He probably wouldn't do anything but seethe about it, but he'd still want to know.

This wasn't the time, anyway. He had actual work to get done in this class. He just needed to buckle down, ignore 18 and put the whole thing out of his mind for now. He just needed to not bellow "it's Haski" at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason.

So it was kind of a pity he'd gone and done that anyway.

"Naw," Goku muttered beside him. "She's more your sort of girl, isn't she?"

The entire class, including the teacher, was staring at him. Krillin looked around the class, trying to think of something to mitigate the situation. Bulma looked like she was about to burst out laughing and, over the other side of the room, something Vegeta had said, too low for Krillin to hear, had made his neighbouring student do just that. Chichi looked disdainful and 18 … well, Krillin could never tell what she was thinking. She just looked cool and superior, as usual.

"I, um."

"When I take stream two of this class later today, Krillin, I'll be sure to let Haski know you think she was a driving force in the Henrician Reformation, but for now I'd rather if we stuck to some more widely accepted interpretations." The teacher gave Krillin a faint smile. He probably thought the boy had lost his mind.

"I didn't mean, um." He thought about just saying what he'd really meant and getting it all out there, but as much as he didn't appreciate Haski's booklet, he didn't want to be known for dobbing her in over it, either. Everybody knew she didn't have a great disciplinary track record, so she could probably get into a lot of trouble for this. He shut his mouth and sat quietly for the rest of the lesson.

* * *

"Hey, Bulma?" Goku wasn't sure approaching Bulma was the right thing to do, but it was eating him up inside not knowing what she might have found out about that website and that school. He'd found her in the sciences library, sitting on a couch and staring out the window. She was drinking some kind of iced chocolate drink in a plastic cup, and he wondered when she'd found time to go into town and buy it.

"What is it?" she growled.

"Uh, sorry. I'm sorry if you're mad at me. It's just—"

Bulma sighed. "I'm not mad at you, Goku. I didn't really want to go out with you anyway."

This wounded his pride slightly. He may not have wanted to date Bulma, but it was kind of flattering to think she wanted to date him. At least this got rid of most of the awkwardness. "So, uh, why did you ask?"

"Ugh, I don't know. It's like …" she waved her chocolate drink in the air. "I don't know. I guess you can be as smart as you like and you're still never going to be eloquent at feelings stuff. But you don't want to listen to that shit, anyway."

"Oh, no, it's fine." Goku's expression turned solemn, with eyes closed and a hand on his chest. "I'm a master at girl talk listening stuff."

Bulma laughed. "Sure." He sat down on the couch and looked at her. "Okay, fine. Girl talk listening stuff it is." She took a deep breath and blurted out what she had to say very fast. "Do you ever kind of feel like we were all sold a bill of goods and then it wasn't even true. I guess I expected that by sixteen, nearly seventeen, I'd be basically an adult. I'd have everything figured out. It seems like everyone told us that our whole lives would change when we were eleven, twelve, thirteen – whenever we first started really looking at the opposite sex – and from then on it was just 'learn to deal with it', and nobody ever said 'actually, though, things might just keep changing until who knows when and you'll probably never figure it out well enough to be confident and happy'.

"I thought the way things changed when I was thirteen was the big one, and boys and that kind of stuff would just look that way to me forever, but it doesn't stay the same at all and I feel like such a moron because I'm still trying to figure it all out and maybe everybody else is just smarter than me at this one thing, and they all know what they're doing and thinking and where they're going. How they're getting there."

Goku thought about this for a while, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I kind of get it. Like girls – or boys, whatever – look different to us now but it's sort of worse than how it changed back then, because when you're thirteen it's a big change and you can see what changed; it's all sex and dating and stuff. But now I don't know what changed. I didn't even think about things having changed until you said it, but you're right, I think."

They sat in silence for a moment, then Bulma grinned and punched Goku on the arm. "Hey, you _are_ good at girl talk."

"I told you, my girl talk kung-fu is unrivalled by anybody without boobs."

"So you're conceding to Yajirobe?"

"Hey, I wouldn't make fun of him like that. I'm a sensitive soul, so I'd obviously rather talk about upcoming dances and … dresses and hair or whatever." Bulma cocked her head to one side to look at him. He tried not to laugh. "Okay, yeah, he's really fat. _Really_ fat."

"On a scale of one to ten of fatness, he's The Blob that ate everything, but what did you actually come here to talk about?"

"I keep trying to get a chance to find out if you uncovered anything spooky or suspicious when you looked at that website for me."

"Right." Bulma nodded and fished around in a satchel on the floor. "I wrote some things down for you. I'm not sure what you were expecting to find, though. Nothing really jumped out." She handed him a crumpled slip of paper from the bottom of the bag. "The maintenance of the website is paid out of a trust."

"The Saiyan Society Trust", Goku read.

"Right. That would seem pretty normal for a privately owned school with expenditure overseen by a board of trustees, I'd think. I don't suppose the name means anything to you?"

"Saiyan? No." Goku shrugged. "It's all Greek to me. I didn't even know you'd be able to find this kind of thing out. Do they publish that stuff somewhere?"

"Uh, no. Not exactly. I'm just good at finding things out. I looked a little deeper, since Krillin made it sound like this was pretty important. I had a dig around for things associated with that word, 'saiyan', and found a few corporate accounts and some business registrations with similar names. The oldest one was set up around the time of the trust account, some eighteen years ago, but the Eternal Dragon school was only officially recognised by the relevant local education authorities within the last twelve months."

Goku's jaw went slack. "I knew something was suss with that school."

"Hold on, I'm not finished. That actually isn't as incriminating as it sounds, because at the same time as that name was appearing officially, a different school in the area was disappearing, so when you look at that paper trail it really just seems like they're doing the paperwork on an old name change, maybe. I'd be more certain if I knew what the regulatory rigmarole was for schools over there."

"Oh. So it could just be the weird way they do things in Whatever-stan?"

"Well, it _could_, but wait, there's more."

"Man, I am impressed. I'd been starting to think you hadn't found anything and that's why you weren't telling me about it."

Bulma shook her head. "Oh, Goku, the sooner you accept that I'm unbelievably brilliant, the sooner you can stop worrying about things like that. Anyway, because I'm not only a genius but also very thorough, I had a look for information on the other school name and, basically, it isn't anything like this fancy Eternal Dragon school is supposed to be. It isn't an international or English language school and it's very small; just a local place that's seen better days, really."

"So … what does that mean? I don't get it. I can follow your story but I don't know what all of this name changing stuff actually implies."

She shrugged. "Hell, I don't know. I've done my bit. I don't have the sort of evil, devious mind that comes up with conspiracies. You're going to have to find someone a lot more treacherous than I.

* * *

"Hey, Vegeta, can you help me with something?"

"No."

Goku fidgeted at his desk. He'd just spent a whole half hour studying in the room they shared because he'd thought looking studious and capable would make Vegeta more likely to help out than just running in the room babbling about pigeons, which had happened before in another non-pigeon-related situation. That was just the sort of thing that tended to happen when Goku didn't plan sufficiently.

"Please? I need someone with an incisive mind."

"First you need someone who's a less transparent sycophant." At least when it had been pigeons, Vegeta had looked up from his work. This time he just kept his head down and his pen moving.

"It's cheating if you insult me with words I don't know. Come on, you're clever, right?"

"Compared to you, Kakarrot, a turnip is clever."

"When I was in grade four our class had to make self-portraits out of these turnips we'd all grown. It was hilarious. I gave mine a beard and also some glasses made out of pipe cleaners, even though I didn't have a beard or glasses."

Goku timed the ensuing pause on his desk clock. It lasted for eighty-three seconds.

"What?"

"Turnip Goku. He had a beard and glasses. It was a unit about ecology or something because we had a school vegetable garden and my class grew turnips, but nobody wanted to eat them at the end so we made self-portraits instead."

"The obvious solution", Vegeta groaned.

"Did you ever do something like that at your school? Before Orange Star, I mean?"

"I was educated at home before I came here."

"Oh, really? That must have been fun; just you and Tarble."

"Not Tarble."

"Just you?"

"Just me."

"That's kind of weird."

"Making spectacles for a turnip is weird."

"I guess you're not going to help me with my thing, huh."

"I guess I'm not."

Goku was a little bit glad. On the surface, this conversation was no more hostile than any other they'd had, but there was some kind of hard edge to Vegeta's voice today. It was silly to still be mad about that race, but dredging it all up again would probably be even sillier.

"Hey Vegeta."

Vegeta groaned unhappily.

"What do you think about Chichi Mao?"

"Bitch."

"Okay, but what do you think about her that isn't just the exact same thing you think about every other girl."

He shrugged. "Bossy. Cries a lot. Takes mostly bullshit waste of time subjects."

Goku thought about this for a while. "Okay but how is something like English Literature more of a bullshit waste of time than Latin?"

Vegeta grimaced.

"That's what you're doing now, right? Latin?"

Vegeta's pen was pushing very hard at the paper.

"What's the grand reason for studying Latin? Because I've never really understood why anybody studies it."

"It's…."

"You can't think of even one reason. I knew it. It's just a snobby thing, right? So you can say you did it and look real fancy when you know what mottoes mean."

"Well, I didn't pick it", Vegeta snapped, lifting his eyes from his work for the first time tonight, then quickly refocussing.

"You don't have to get all huffy." Goku pouted and turned back to his desk. "I was just teasing."

He dropped his voice down to a mutter but half-hoped Vegeta could still hear him. "Don't know why anyone'd go and study something they didn't even pick. That's way stupider than making turnip dudes."


	13. Chapter 13: List For Badgers

Thank you for lots of reviews this time around, from; Seren McGowan, Kakarot Son (nice name XD ), AmberRae, getalover and catgirl26. I'm glad you are still enjoying the story, and every review makes me feel all happy inside (and validated because I'm sad like that).

There's a Maron POV scene in here. That's something exciting for you. And this is the second chapter named after badgers. Maybe Goku's right and they _are_ plotting something.

**Chapter 13: List For Badgers**

Chichi was brilliant, spectacular and amazing (at cooking). Her face was flushed and shone with a light sheen of sweat as she bent over before him (to take the next course of their banquet from the oven). Her (pork) loins were firm but tender. Her rump (steak) looked so succulent Goku almost couldn't stop himself from leaning over and taking a bite. Her (chicken) breasts glistened under the bright kitchen lights and in that moment Goku thought he could marry her (rhubard and custard tart, because it was easily the most sensational thing he'd ever tasted).

Home Economics had gone on a rapid upswing. It had taken less than a week for Goku to realise that Chichi was the most exceptional cook he'd ever met. It was also something new for him to add to his 'Chichi Mao Pros And Cons' list, which he was using to try and figure out if he actually liked her, or if she was just kind of pretty and didn't seem so bad, in terms of meanness, when surrounded by hundreds of other mean kids.

So far the pros read 'pretty' and 'said I was funny/sweet'. Goku looked at the rhubarb and custard dessert and added 'TART' in big letters.

"Oh, good," Chichi said, looking over at him. "You're writing the menus for teacher. Let me see."

"No, don't!" Goku protested, but she had already snatched the piece of paper from him and was staring at it with furrowed brow. "Uh. I am making those lists about everybody. It's not just you. It's, um, it's for … intelligence." She didn't say anything. "Badger … badger intelligence. It's a list. For badgers." _Shit_, he thought, _why badgers? Why always with the badgers? Nobody is ever going to believe an excuse involving badgers._

She turned the paper around so Goku could read it. "Tart?"

"Oh, no! Not like that! It's just because I … uh, badgers … love tarts."

"I am _not_ a tart, Goku." Her expression was confident and angry but there was a little wobble in her vowels and the tell-tale shine of unshed tears was building up in her eyes. "And I will not just sit here and let anybody say that about me."

The whole room had looked up from their cooking by now, all used to the signs that Chichi was about to have a tantrum. "Nobody says you're a tart, Chichi!" Lunch offered from across the room.

"That's right," sounded a male voice from one of the stations at the very back of the room. "Frigid prude is more like it."

"Shut up, Quigley!" When she raised her voice, the quiver was even more obvious. She spoke to Goku again; "why would you even think I was a tart?"

"No, that's not what I meant. I don't think you're a tart."

"Chichi is anything but a tart", Lunch offered helpfully. "Chichi's never even had a boyfriend."

"Thanks a lot, Lunch", Chichi snapped.

"Hey, she's just trying to be helpful", retorted the girl paired with Lunch. "Unlike some people, Lunch is actually _nice_."

"Except when she's off her medication mental, you mean?"

Lunch cringed.

"Hey, Chichi, that's not very nice", Goku admonished cautiously.

"Oh, right, I forgot you run with that crowd. I bet none of them have told you about the time Lunch sank her stepfather's yacht and then took a dump in his swimming pool."

"Woah, what?" This put a whole new spin on sweet little Lunch. His friends had told him Lunch could go a little bit crazy, but they hadn't given him any examples like that. Goku looked at her incredulously.

Lunch appeared to be trying to sink into herself. "That was a long time ago, Chichi. I'm in a different place with my family now."

"It was less than six months ago."

"I was a different person."

"No need to fight, you two," Quigley said, "you're both nut cases."

That was it. That. Was. It. Forget liking Chichi. Forget liking anybody! "Arrgh!" Goku clawed at his hair and his classmates turned to look at him. "Why do you guys have to make it so hard to like you all?"

"Nobody asked you to like us all", Chichi said.

"Well, why not? What's wrong with people here? Why don't any of you want friends? I've been so nice to you, Chichi, even when my best friend hated your guts, and you just make fun of me all the time. You mustn't hate me or you wouldn't have picked me as your cooking partner, even if your friend pulled out, but every time it seems like you want to be friends or whatever then you go and say something awful and it's ruined. I can't be the sole niceness output for an entire school, forever."

For a while, the only sounds in the room were of various kitchen equipment. The momentary surge of frustration was already fading into regret for his harsh words. Maybe they wouldn't hold it against him. Maybe they wouldn't even remember. It would, after all, be a strange day at Orange Star indeed if nobody at all had a nervous breakdown and started abusing their classmates.

Quigley broke the peace. "How about that, Chichi, even Everyone's Friend Goku thinks you're awful."

* * *

"Hey, babe, you're a hard girl to get a hold of, lately." Yamcha's cheerful tone camouflaged the fact that he knew perfectly well his girlfriend had been avoiding him.

"Oh, well, I've been busy. Lots of work."

"Yeah? Didn't think the crème de la crème had to sweat it like the rest of us."

She punched him on the arm lightly. "Get real. Who do you know who actually qualifies as 'the rest'?"

"Can we talk?"

"Nice segue."

"Can we talk without you being a smart-arse about it, B?"

The smile on her face faltered, then reasserted itself a little stiffly. "Sure, I've got a free period."

They found an unused classroom and Yamcha closed the door. "So I'll get right to it. Have you really been going around asking other guys out?"

"No! No way." He eyed her off but before he could even start talking the anger melted out of her expression and she sighed. "But I did ask Goku."

He leant against a desk. "Why? If we'd been fighting or something I guess I'd understand, but…."

"What's the difference, really? If you or I ask someone out while our own relationship is 'off', it's still with the expectation that this, that us, isn't over forever. It isn't like something has ended and both parties are looking for something new to start. It's just a diversion during a rough patch. For most people, most relationships, that's called cheating."

"Woah, hey, no way. I have never cheated on you." Yamcha wasn't as quick to anger as the girl before him, but he wasn't going to listen to her imply he was a cheater when he'd always abided by the rules of fidelity. When they were on, he was faithful. When they were off, there was nothing to be faithful to.

"I'll get right to it, too. Sometimes I think the only reason we're still going out is that I'm too stubborn to admit what I wanted when I was thirteen isn't going to be the optimal decision for the rest of my life."

That made him even angrier. What, like he was good enough for her as a kid but now she was about to turn seventeen he was just some childish mistake? "Sometimes I think the reason we don't work is that you're the kind of freak who can talk about wanting to go out with someone as making a sub-optimal decision."

"Don't get all romantic on me, _babe_. Like I don't know you only wanted to go out with me back then because I had bigger boobs than the other girls."

"What do you want me to say? That I was in love with you? I was a fourteen year old boy."

"I know back then it was all about looking cute as a couple. It was for me, too. I guess what I would like is for the three intervening years to have made you at least like, if not love, something more than physical. When's the last time we really talked?"

"We're talking now."

"Oh, yeah, Yamcha, and this is just fucking _great_. I'm loving the communication here."

He threw up his hands. "I don't know if you want someone to mope after you and tell you he loves you all the time or what."

"No, no. I guess what I want is all the physical stuff and then, in between all that, it would be really nice if the guy I was with could just be my friend as well. Talk about stuff. Share opinions. People do that, you know. People live together. They couldn't do that if it was all just love or hate, feast or famine."

"Teenagers don't, B. We're not thirty. We're not old. Just enjoy it, because I don't know if you grew up too fast or what, but nobody is going to want to play old married couple with you for another twenty years."

"Well, fine. Maybe that's not what I want anyway, but I definitely don't want to spend all this time bickering with someone who isn't even fun to argue with."

"What?"

"I've got some new criteria now, thanks to this conversation. One: cute and sexy." She began counting off on her fingers. "Two: I can talk to him as a friend. Three: fun to fight with."

"Fun to fight with? B, that doesn't even make sense and it sure doesn't sound like the basis of a healthy relationship, as long as we're getting all Dr. Phil here."

She narrowed her eyes and held up three fingers. "Those are the three, Yamcha." She jabbed him in the chest. "Work on them."

* * *

"I tried to break up with Bulma just now."

Krillin looked shifty. He had found out only after talking to Yamcha about the Goku-and-Bulma incident that he had not actually been broken up with her at the time. He was hoping Yamcha wouldn't let anybody know it was Krillin who'd clued him in.

"How'd that go?" Oolong looked suddenly interested. "Maybe I should take a crack."

"I think somehow she ended up putting _me_ on notice." Yamcha looked down at Oolong and patted the top of his head. "I'd like to see you try, little guy."

Oolong snorted. "Ladies love me."

"Ladies love beating you half to death."

"Bulma can beat me off any time."

"She's still my _girlfriend_. I think. Either way, shut up."

The smaller, pink-faced boy shrugged. "I don't know why you're so hot to hold onto her, anyway. Maron's all over you and she's an order of magnitude fitter."

"She's not what I'd call a master conversationalist."

"So converse with us." Oolong indicated himself and Krillin, who continued to remain pointedly silent. "That's not exactly what you need a girl for."

Yamcha looked off into the distance thoughtfully. "You're kind of a turd, you know that?"

"Sure do."

"So long as we're on the same page."

"But really, there's no reason you've got to stick with her. You're not supposed to spend the rest of your life with the chick you dug in your early teens. At the rate you're going, you'll finish school then move in with Bulma because it seems logical, then just fall into marriage because hey, why not, you've been together for ages and you already live with one another, and then one day a few years later you'll realise she isn't even that great and you wish you'd taken the opportunity to fool around a bit when you were younger, find out what you wanted, maybe end up back with her, probably not."

Yamcha paled. It wasn't the first time he'd wondered if their relationship relied entirely upon habit, and if it was a habit he'd just keep perpetuating forever in the absence of an easier option. He didn't want to think that he might have already, accidentally, laid out the tracks for his entire life to run upon before he'd even finished secondary school. "That's weirdly logical, coming from you."

"Also, hell, you don't want that to be the _only_ pussy you ever get."

"And, there we go. You always have to ruin it."

* * *

"It was Haski."

18 turned to look at him, which was an achievement in itself. "The mastermind behind the English Reformation? We all heard the other day. I'm sure she's proud of herself."

"I feel like you talk to me more lately. Like you're really opening up. This is a good moment. We should hug."

She stared at him without blinking. On one hand, it was quite an accomplishment for Krillin to actually say what he was thinking while she was looking at him. On the other hand, he wasn't going to get a hug.

"But what I mean is it was Haski who made those booklets."

A little line appeared between her eyebrows.

"I know, I know, eleventy billion people have already told you it was her. I just thought that maybe there was some minuscule chance that you hadn't heard and I had to say it, just in case. I'd want to know, if it was me."

"No", she said, and he flinched, expecting another pounding on the skull. "Nobody told me that."

"Oh." He tapped his index fingers together. "So what are you going to do now."

She looked off into the distance, apparently thinking. When she spoke it was slowly. "I am going to kill her."

"Oh." She walked off. "Wait, was that one of your jokes?" She kept walking. "Ha ha, very funny. We're such jokers, you and I. Good Ol' Charlie Brown and Lucy, right?" She turned a corner. "No? Right. Shit."

* * *

To say that the period between prep finishing and the lights turning out throughout the senior girls' boarding house was awkward within the walls of study bedroom 2-C would be to do a great injustice to the level of discomfort experienced by Chichi and Lunch as they attempted to share a bedroom after the former's outburst during their morning class.

Both had attempted, initially, to avoid going back to their room but by the time the other girls had filtered out of the common room into their own bedrooms, there was really no advantage to sitting uncomfortably in the same room out there, over doing so where they could at least be somewhat consoled by the presence of their personal belongings.

"What are you doing?" Chichi asked, after a long period of silence.

Lunch was laying on her bed with her back to Chichi, writing carefully in a small notebook. "I'm planning a party for Bulma's birthday."

"Oh. Is that soon?"

Lunch nodded. "She's not having a party at home this year, she's planning a big one for her 18th, so Maron and I thought we'd do something fun at school. We're thinking of doing a midnight feast. We haven't had one for years, not since we were juniors. It used to seem so daring, taking off across the lawn in the night to fire up the kitchens and eat until we were sick. It's a little thing now, compared to sneaking out for parties and such, but I think it will be a fun bit of nostalgia. It's a surprise and she's going to freak when we come and wake her up in the middle of the night."

There was another period of silence.

"You can come if you want, I guess." Lunch could dimly remember Chichi being invited to those old feasts in the same way. 'You can come if you want, I guess' had been code then, as now, for 'I'm trying to be nice but I hope you'll get the hint and decline'.

Then, as now, Chichi either didn't get the hint or wilfully ignored it. "I'd love to", she said, and Lunch felt free to grimace, since she was facing away from her room-mate.

"Okay, but it's a party for Bulma so if you're out of sorts with her and don't think you can be nice to her, just don't come on the night. I know you don't always get along with her." That, in turn, was code for 'I can recall at least two screaming matches last year in which you said she dressed like a hooker'.

"I can be nice."

There was a part of Lunch raging and flailing with frustration at the repression of the urge to tell Chichi to fuck off and find her own friends. There was another part of Lunch, and this was the part in control for now, that told her it was so easy to hurt someone else. She didn't know what Chichi was feeling and, as a teenage girl, she had to make an especial effort not to be cliquey, as she undoubtedly had been in times gone by.

But god _damn_ it was hard to like some people.

* * *

It was hard to be Maron, she thought as she brushed her hair. There was a lot of work went into looking naturally flawless and, as if that weren't burden enough, even her friends thought she was a bit dim. Okay, so maybe she wasn't quite as handy in a conversation as most of the other students here, but she could follow their leaps of logic when they gave her time to catch up and, hey, she'd like to see Bulma Briefs form a coherent analysis on one of Liszt's tone poems, or have any kind of valid opinion on Mathias Grünewald.

But mostly things were tough because people just assumed the worst about her, because she was pretty and because she wasn't terribly bright by Orange Star standards. She screwed up her pretty face and glared at the mirror. Why shouldn't she flirt with Yamcha? It wasn't fair for him to stick around Bulma even when she was blatantly shopping around. The Goku thing might have just been a joke, as Bulma claimed, but Maron wasn't blind.

Maron didn't smoke, because it was bad for her teeth and complexion, but the woods down behind the tennis courts were a good place for anyone who wanted quiet, not just smokers. She went there when she was working on a composition in her head and needed absolute quiet. She usually got it, but when somebody else was having a conversation there it was hard not to overhear.

Especially if the same people were always down there talking.

Especially if one of them was the girlfriend of the boy you liked and the other one was a very different boy altogether.

Okay, so, no, wait. That sounded dramatic in her head but it wasn't quite honest. It wasn't Bulma's voice she'd noticed first, it was Vegeta's _accent_. Maron had once told Vegeta, years ago, that the way he talked made her think of banquets with the queen and he'd said "my parents took me to a banquet once where the queen was present but it was very boring and the portions were too small" and she'd just about _died_ because, wow, the queen. Maron's family was pretty important and they'd never met the queen. Not even once. She'd never quite grasped what exactly Vegeta was, in terms of titles and stuff, but she was pretty sure when he grew up he'd be taking tea with the queen every Tuesday or whatever day of the week best suited both their busy royal schedules.

So she could understand why Bulma might want to be chatting him up, even if he was probably going to be bald by twenty-five, but there was no reason she had to go tying up _both_ royal banquets _and_ devilish scars.

"Well," Maron told the mirror as she twisted her hair up on top of her head and pinned it in place, ready for bed. "Maybe I'll just talk to her about it and ask her to choose." She wrinkled her nose, frowned, then tried wrinkling it again in a prettier way. "And if she chooses Yamcha then maybe I'll just tell Yamcha how much time she spends down in secret places with other boys."

Now she felt guilty. "I'm saving her from her own cheating ways, mirror me, so don't judge. This is a good deed."


	14. Chapter 14: Murdered By Communists

Sorry this took a while to go up. Thank you for reviews from Lady Lan (I'm glad you liked Maron! I find it a bit worrying to introduce new pov characters, as they obviously need to be heavily re-imagined for the setting), AmberRae (sorry you didn't get a birthday chapter), catgirl26 (I have definitely taken that as a compliment XD ), Shades of Crimson (oh man I haven't watched Friends in ages but it seems like they are always making absurd lists in that show), Oh No. It's Happened (thank you for making an exception for me ; D ), Lon Wolfgood (who knows what 18 is capable of XD ), getalover (I haven't forgotten! I've just been busy), Sally (I hope this makes it to you before you die) and, finally, DBZ lover (thanks!)

This one isn't particularly long but it's a bit exposition-y at the end there. I think I spent more time trying to trim the exposition out of here than I did actually writing the chapter!

**Chapter 14: Murdered by Communists**

"Way to ruin a party, Lunch." Maron spoke quietly, but not so quietly the others assembled couldn't hear. Lunch cringed and darted a look across at Chichi, who stared back resolutely.

"Just pretend she's not here," Lunch hissed back. "and don't lay it all on me. I was just being nice, she didn't have to come."

Chichi ignored them. She was too busy fuming at Haski, who had apparently been invited to this party since its conception without telling her, to get angry at Lunch or Maron. Of all the people present in the dark kitchens this midnight, Haski looked the most uncomfortable. She was actively trying to avoid meeting Chichi's gaze, and not without good reason.

For Chichi's part, she was laying on the anger and potential aggression to avoid facing the fact that she was genuinely hurt. Of her group of four friends Chichi knew very well that Melody and Pippa would side with one another in any argument and would be quite happy as a pair of friends without Chichi or Haski. Chichi had always assumed that she and Haski, then, formed the second twosome within the foursome. Of course Haski had other friends, but Chichi had thought they were the kind of friends who always told one another about parties and things. Certainly if it had been Chichi with a genuinely friendly invitation to a party she would have shared it.

Not that Chichi Mao ever got invited to parties.

"No fighting on my birthday", Bulma scolded them, despite the fact that it was after midnight and therefore not her birthday any longer. "Just ignore Chichi and let Lunch figure out how to heat up the birthday foodstuffs."

Chichi would have offered to help with the food if the comments about ignoring her didn't rankle her so. As it was, she sat silently staring at Haski as a silence fell over the room. Most of the girls were watching Lunch fiddle with the food she'd brought.

Eventually, Maron broke the silence.

"So, Bulma, I've been thinking."

"Congratulations", Haski sneered.

"About Yamcha."

Bulma turned her back to what Lunch was doing and leant against the counter, putting her weight on her elbows. "Yeah, Maron, everyone can tell."

"I don't mean that. I mean, yeah, but no." Maron frowned and tried to get back on track. She'd planned out what she wanted to say, but she hadn't planned it with interruptions, just as a monologue, and now she'd lost her place.

"I mean that you and Yamcha break up a lot and since you're hanging with other boys now I just think it's kind of unfair. To Yamcha and also to other girls because you're taking up more than one guy so nobody else can get them."

Bulma scowled. "Are you accusing me of cheating on my boyfriend?"

Yes, she was. "No, no, of course not."

"Well what, then? What is it I'm supposed to have been doing with these mystery other boys?"

The entire room was watching them now. Lunch had forgotten her food preparation.

"Well, um, it's not exactly a mystery. You're always hanging around with Vegeta. I don't mean you have to break up with Yamcha or anything. Just that you should choose one boy and stick with him because otherwise it's not fair."

Bulma made an expression Maron had never before seen on her face. "Vegeta? What did you – Vegeta and I aren't _doing_ anything, Maron. We just talk sometimes." She'd regained some composure and now Bulma laughed lightly, flipping some of her hair over a shoulder as she did so. "What did you see to make you think it was anything improper?"

Maron opened her mouth to reply, then thought it through a little bit. There was a certain look about the muscles around the corners of Bulma's mouth and eyes. And why had she mentioned seeing anything, anyway? All Maron knew about was some talking. She narrowed her own eyes and tilted her chin up. "I saw enough", she lied.

Bulma visibly reeled and Maron felt a thrill of vindictive pride and perverse curiosity.

The shorter girl collected herself almost instantly and threw her head back in the air. "So what?" she said. "So what if I've kissed some other boys?" Some? Boys? Plural? Maron never knew Bulma was so daring. "Yamcha sees other girls when we're on breaks. There's no reason I shouldn't see other guys."

Maron frowned. She couldn't exactly claim to have seen Bulma making out with anybody while she was supposed to be with Yamcha, since she'd never actually seen any of this kissing. Certainly the talking in the wood went on behind Yamcha's back, but Maron didn't want to reveal that was her source of information in case that hadn't actually been where all the really good stuff went down. She began formulating a safe plan of attack and spoke slowly, so her mouth didn't get ahead of her brain. "Does Yamcha know about you seeing other guys, though?"

"He—"

The door opened. Everyone froze. In the doorway, looking even more forbidding framed against the dark corridor, stood Baba, the house-mistress for the senior girls' boarding house.

"I thought I'd left this behind me with the juniors." Although she had said nothing particularly disapproving, the entire room felt universally that same sensation of shame they'd experienced for similar crimes when, as pre-teens, they had seemed the most daring and depraved examples of rule-breaking possible. At the rear of the group, the cooker suddenly jumped to life and Lunch hurried to turn it back off in the dim light.

"Back to bed. I'll decide what to do with you in the morning." She didn't move from the centre of the doorway, so that the girls were forced to brush past single file under her familiar leer as they left the room.

"Even the little girls manage to do this without getting caught."

* * *

All day Krillin had been ribbing Goku about how spick-and-span his uniform looked, but the taller boy could feel vindicated now, when his scheduled meeting with the headmaster was called forward so he was left no time to go back to his room and fix himself up. It was a hollow victory, of course, since he still had to walk to the headmaster's office, past a classroom in which Krillin sat cheerfully waving out the window.

Goku breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his parents sitting outside the office door. Instead of being outlandishly _nouveaux riches,_ they looked professional and well-presented. In dark suits, with their hair successfully tamed, they looked like completely different people. His mother patted the seat beside her and Goku joined them, not bothering to hide his curious stare.

They didn't just _look_ like different people, he thought, they had a completely different air about them. They held their spines differently and set their mouths differently. When the headmaster's secretary told them he'd be just a moment he noticed they even spoke differently. It put him at ease at the same time as making him uncomfortable; he couldn't imagine the whirlwind that blew into his life being a pair of entrepreneurs successful enough to have amassed such wealth, but done up like this they seemed both trustworthy and accomplished. They didn't, however, look like the people he was reluctantly coming to think of as his parents.

He wondered if the ability to turn respectability off and on like that was genetic, then remembered Radditz and decided it wasn't.

The secretary ushered them into the office, where three chairs had been arranged for them before the big wooden desk. Headmaster Lehrer smiled disarmingly as they sat down, his parents forcing Goku into the central seat. His father placed his hand on Goku's shoulder when they sat, as though they were best pals.

"It's a pleasure to see you, Mr. and Mrs. Son."

"A pleasure to be here," purred Goku's mother, squeezing his hand. "It's so hard to get a chance to see them when they're away at school."

"Of course, you understand why we're here."

Mr. Son nodded. "Kakarrot is having some trouble adjusting to the change in curriculum. We were worried about this, of course, but thought he might bounce back a little quicker."

"It's only natural that transferring from a vastly different curriculum will pose a challenge to any student, but we have many international pupils at the school who manage quite satisfactorily, and many of those have the added problem of navigating a curriculum in a language other than their native tongue. Kakarrot's teachers are beginning to pose concerns that he may not ever 'bounce back' to a level close to that indicated by his entrance papers."

His parents began to debate with the headmaster about Goku's potential for academic growth and what should be expected from him. It was obvious that any contribution he might have to this conversation would not be appreciated, so the teenager tuned out.

Goku was staring out the window, wondering what his friends were up to, when he was jolted back to wood-panelled reality by a question from his father.

"Huh?"

Irritation flicked across the older man's face briefly. "I asked how you were doing in games."

Goku's face immediately brightened. "Great! Our football semi is coming up soon and I reckon we're in a real good position to go through to finals, and there are a couple of big cross-country events in early March, which I've qualified for. I'm really excited for track to start next term, too, and even my tennis is getting better." His expression turned apologetic. "I'm trying not to take much time out of my studies to spend on games, but I don't want to fall behind and Krillin and I have been working on some really good stuff with the football team. I really think Orange Star has a chance of snatching the Under 18 boys' this year."

His mother beamed. "So you can see that even if he is finding himself unable to deliver, academically, on the level expected, he's proving himself a valuable asset in the sports department. Of course we all want to see Kakarrot achieving on the level at which we know he is capable, but I think we can also agree that there is no reason to talk about anything so drastic as leaving the school so long as he is working solidly academically and exceptionally, athletically. There's no reason for us to believe another school in this country would be able to bring out any more in him, academically, and we don't want to send him back out of the country."

The conversation got back up to speed in terms of talking about Goku like he wasn't there, and after a while he was sent to wait outside. When his parents finally emerged, they wore smug looks of self-congratulation.

"As long as you can keep up the level you're at, you should be fine to finish out your two years here."

Goku groaned. "You couldn't have negotiated for a lower level? I'm having to work my butt off to do the work I'm doing."

"Don't complain. Now," His mother turned from snappish to conspiratory without any kind of segue. "We're told you've been assigned a room with a high achiever both academically and athletically. You'd do well to get his help with your work."

"Befriend him," added his father.

Goku crinkled up his nose and squinted one eye. "Vegeta? I hope Mr. Lehrer didn't tell you he'll help me out, because he won't. Did you know he didn't get to be a prefect for sixth because he punched this kid from another school in the mouth after a rugby game?"

Mrs. Son rolled her eyes.

"No, mum, come on. He punched him so hard he got bits of his teeth stuck in his hand. And he's really mad at me lately. I've got other friends I can ask for help, and I'm doing that. I want to be Vegeta's friend eventually but it's not happening any time soon, and probably never if I'm always asking him to do stuff for me."

"Oh, I'm sure you could figure it out," she said, placing a hand on his back and ushering him out of the office reception area. "Why don't the two of you bond over your shared cultural heritage?"

"Uh, mum, we don't _have_ shared cultural heritage. I have the culture of loitering in front of the post office or watching my brother's _Magnum, P.I._ DVD collection if it's raining. Vegeta has the culture of watercress finger sandwiches and polo."

"I don't think—"

"No, really. They play polo here. Turns out it's real dangerous, which I never knew. Kind of makes it a lot cooler now that I know you can die from playing it."

"I was trying to say that I don't think your grandfather has been teaching you anything at all about your family history."

Goku shrugged. "I don't know. I guess he said our family came over in the war? So we must be, what, like Polish or something?"

His mother made a frustrated sound and threw her hands up in the air. Mr. Son took over. "Our family's heritage does not lie in Poland, Kakarrot."

"Goku", he muttered.

"Originally, we were from Saiya. Are you familiar with the country?" Goku shook his head. "It was a small Central European monarchy. You were close with Poland. The mystery of how Saiya survived as a small independent power amongst much larger neighbours for so long is just that; a mystery, but survive it did and the Saiyan people built up a very distinct culture of their own as they remained largely isolated from most other continental peoples."

"And then they got conquered and died? I really don't think this is going to help me make friends with people."

He was ignored. "For various reasons you obviously aren't interested in," (in the background, Mrs. Son rolled her eyes again) "the Saiyan people threw themselves wholeheartedly into the fray for World War One, and the local enthusiasm for defending their nation left the country seriously depopulated. When the Second World War landed on their doorstep less than twenty-five years later there just weren't enough resources to defend the borders. It was taken easily."

"So they got conquered and all died, except the people who evacuated."

"Yes. Except for the royal family, who simply disappeared. Most people believe they were our own Romanovs."

Goku thought about this. "Murdered … by communists?" he hazarded.

"Very droll, son. The point is, those who still have Saiyan heritage like to band together and celebrate that history, to prevent it from being forgotten altogether. Your room-mate and yourself have something in common. You can use that."

"Whatever. I don't even understand why you care who I make friends with", Goku complained.

"We just want you to have a rewarding sixth form experience", his mother told him in a particularly silky voice.

This made him very nervous.


	15. Chapter 15: No Fishing

Wow, so many reviews for chapter 14! Thank you to getalover, Seren McGowan, Vervaine, Cutiee-Pummkinn, sally (glad you're still alive!), DbZ lover, catgirl26 and Lady Lan.

In this chapter we have that staple of high school fiction: omgparties.

**Chapter 15: No Fishing**

She really was going to kill that bitch.

This was hardly the cruellest thing anybody had ever said or done about or to the Gero twins but it was, by far, the incident with the worst timing. She could have so easily ignored the jibe last month, with her brother by her side, but on her own was _so_ on her own. It felt like her hands were going to crawl off her wrists and strangle Haski on their own, if she didn't do something with them soon.

She didn't want to be this girl. She wanted to be cool, calm and collected. She didn't want to be the kid who flew off the handle into a violent rage at the slightest provocation. She wasn't like that; she could handle stress. She wasn't like anybody else.

The only thing keeping her from starting something with Haski was her desperate desire to not put herself in a position to be compared with one of her peers. In particular, she knew lurching over to Haski and putting a fist through her face would draw comparison to Vegeta; another pent-up overachiever filled with secret and unpredictable anger.

She hated Vegeta. She was better than that.

18 tapped her pen angrily against her notebook and imagined her eyes were burning holes directly through the back of Haski's frosty blonde head, all the way into her brain and out the front of her skull again, killing her.

As though she were doing it just to prove she was alive and spite 18, Haski answered a question from their economics teacher.

18 drummed her fingers on her desk rhythmically until the class was dismissed. As she walked past Haski's desk on the way to the door 18 leant down slightly and said "bitch". Haski looked up and her green eyes were wide with surprise; impossibly innocent looking. 18 stalked out of the room.

When she sat down to take notes for her next class, she realised Haski had stolen 18's new fountain pen right out of her hand.

She was going to kill that bitch.

* * *

"Come to a party with me," Bulma whispered.

A muscle underneath Vegeta's left eye contracted and he put his fingertips on his cheekbone to try and suppress the tic. "No", he said.

She leant over so far her shoulder was touching his, until he leant in turn and left them both twisting at odd angles out of the chairs with an inch of clear air between them. Lately, the blue-haired girl had begun sitting next to him during mathematics. This delighted the teacher, who thought the only way his top two pupils could improve their work would be by co-operating with each other.

For Vegeta's part, it made him feel like he could rip the polished wooden surface of his desk apart with his bare hands and hurl it out the window, or at her.

"This one's easier to model if you step outside the formulae we're learning. I've found something more elegant, using some university-level texts. It's actually easier." She was looking at his book now. He shoved her aside, not gently.

"This works."

"I know. It's just clunky."

"We are supposed to be learning these theories and formulae, not making up our own ways to do things."

"You're just manufacturing work for yourself, doing it that way." She leant back in, this time putting a hand on his leg for support, and so he couldn't escape. "Come to a party with me. Tonight."

"No." He shifted, turning his body away from her so that she had to let go of him. Her hand trailed back to where it belonged slowly, fingers fidgeting with the corner of his blazer before finally retreating.

"The formula works," he said stubbornly. "I like it this way."

* * *

"So, I found out what 'Saiyan' means."

Bulma seemed disinterested, playing with her phone instead of paying attention. Krillin made only the most perfunctory of queries. They were in the sciences library, holed up in a private study room.

"It's not as exciting as I thought it might be. It's just like a nationality or ethnicity or something."

"Oh!" Bulma looked suddenly excited. "That's where I've heard it before." Goku's face lit up. "Uh, Mrs. König, what would you call her, the duchess of something? I don't know. But she has this little cottage museum-stroke-bookstore about the Saiyan people. It's very boring. You know the sort of thing – all weavings and pottery and little metal figurines. Plaques about their religion and crap like that."

"How come you've even been there?"

"Oh, well, Krillin you must remember it, too. The year Vegeta turned thirteen was also his father's fortieth and his parents had a huge joint party. To keep the kids out of the way they took us on all these tours of the grounds and outbuildings, which includes the museum."

"Oh, right, I do remember that." Krillin nodded. "It's in like a little gatehouse, so you can see it and stop in from the main road."

"My parents think I should be better friends with Vegeta."

Bulma made a gagging noise complete with hand motions. Krillin snickered.

"Do you think maybe they know his parents?"

Krillin cringed. "I doubt it, buddy."

"But they're from the same place, originally."

"You're totally right," Bulma said, "and Chichi knows every Asian person in the country."

"Snake probably knows everybody in whatever place she's princess of", Krillin offered.

"And you know everybody who shaves their head."

"You know everyone with blue hair."

"You know everybody … what's Chastain? French? Krillin knows everybody from France."

"Okay," Goku held up his hands. "Sorry. I was just hoping for some way to find out more about my parents. And maybe Saiyans because they seem to think it's a really important thing that I'm missing out on by not knowing about." He thought for a moment. "So is König a Saiyan surname, do you think? Or Son?"

"König is German, I think," Bulma muttered, returning to her phone. "Maybe Son is Saiyan, I don't know."

The subject dropped and Goku returned to working on football plans with Krillin.

"You guys want to go to a party?" Bulma asked after a while. "It's tonight."

"It's Tuesday", Krillin replied.

"It won't get wild. It's for a birthday."

"Sorry." Goku shook his head. "I really need to work on my ICT project. My brother's coming down on the weekend so I don't want to be doing it then."

"I've got a sociology paper", added Krillin. Bulma sighed. "Just go with Yamcha."

"Yamcha isn't invited. I'm sick of Yamcha."

* * *

So nobody wanted to go to a party with her on a Tuesday night. Big deal. She'd have fun on her own. Meet people. Mingle. Maybe she'd meet a hot guy. Tonight was going to be awesome.

She tried to tell herself this, but the angry way she stomped down the wooded path betrayed her true feelings on the matter. Bulma wobbled down towards the side road where she would meet her ride. The path wasn't too bad tonight. They'd had another short February freeze and although the weather had quickly warmed back up, the ground was still hard.

She nearly fell, however, when she saw a figure standing by the road. Her immediate assumption was that it might be a teacher, but when nobody came investigating the loud crashing she'd made with her tumble, Bulma grew brave and moved forward.

And was very surprised.

The figure was Vegeta, looking stiff and uncomfortable in jeans and a dark button-up shirt. Bulma couldn't help the smile that spread across her face as she edged forwards. He saw her and folded his arms across his chest.

"Hey," she said. "Didn't think you were coming." He shifted his weight and, despite wearing the same expression as usual and holding himself with the usual impeccable posture, he seemed somehow nervous. Bulma tried to think of another time she'd seen him wearing a pair of jeans but came up blank. "I hope you didn't injure yourself getting down here."

"Hilarious," he sneered. Bulma's careful smile split into a grin. "You didn't say what time," he added reproachfully.

"Well, good guess," she replied. "The car should be here soon."

He stared silently at the ground and she didn't know what else to say.

* * *

Yamcha was eating an apple and reading a book in the cafeteria. Food service was over, and the younger students were restricted to their respective boarding houses at this hour, so it was empty apart from him. He had brought the fruit down from his common room.

When one of the doors opened he looked up automatically, then smiled when he realised it was Maron. Yamcha's mouth was full, but he motioned for her to sit down with his apple.

"Hi!" She beamed at him. "I thought you'd be at the party."

Yamcha tilted his head to one side as she sat down. "No parties tonight, Maron. It's Tuesday."

"There's an 18th in the next village over. It's supposed to be low-key, because of the whole Tuesday thing, but it's something to do. Just for a sister of somebody we've met at other parties."

"Why aren't you going, then?"

"I was going to; Bulma invited me. But I'm really excited about where my current painting's at and I don't want to bail out on it and lose all my inspiration, you know? So I told her I couldn't go."

Yamcha smiled. He didn't really understand Maron's 'inspirations' or her 'zones', but he knew she was supposed to be very talented both musically and as a painter; it was one of the reasons she was at the school. Besides which, her enthusiasm could be infectious.

She gave him another one of those big, candid smiles and Yamcha felt his own smile widen in response. Then, what she'd actually said hit him.

"Bulma invited you?"

"Sure."

"She didn't invite me."

"Oh." Maron looked at the table. "Are you guys, um, 'off' then, at the moment?"

"No." Yamcha tossed the apple up and caught it again. "I didn't think so."

Maron bit her lip. Ranfan, who took maths, had told her that Bulma asked Vegeta to go earlier today – she knew that Maron fancied Yamcha and had suspicions about Bulma and Vegeta. Now would be the perfect time to tell Yamcha all of the things Bulma had been doing. All the sneaking around in the woods, all the _kissing_, and now all the inviting other boys to parties.

"Well, I think you—"

He looked back at her. His face looked puzzled and even faintly hurt.

"I think you can probably assume it's a girly party. No boys. I think I heard Bulma say it was a jewellery party. You know, where you buy jewellery. Like Tupperware. I forgot about that when I asked you if you were going. But that's what it is."

"Really?" Maron nodded and smiled weakly. "Well, that explains it. Thanks, babe. I was getting worried for a sec."

* * *

Vegeta pressed his back into a wall and watched the press of people mingling, carrying their various bottles and cups. He had never been to this kind of party, and had assumed it would somehow carry a sense of excitement just by merit of being something his father would disapprove of.

Somebody pressed a bottle into his hand. Bulma was smiling at him with a matching bottle in her other hand, for herself. "I got you a beer."

He looked at the bottle.

"You like beer, right?"

He hesitated. "I like wine."

"Ouch. I promise you would not like the wine here."

She seemed satisfied that beer was the right drink for him, and moved to stand right up next to him. He tried to move away but his back was to the wall and his shoulder was against a bookcase. He tasted the beer. He didn't like it, so he put the bottle in the bookcase.

"When do we leave?"

Bulma frowned. "We only just got here." He folded his arms over his chest. "What happened to your drink?" He didn't answer. "Don't you like the music?"

"Not really."

"What music do you like?"

"I don't listen to much music."

"Oh come on." She shoved his shoulder lightly. "I've known you for six years and hardly know anything about you. You must at least have some nostalgic favourites. When I was little my parents loved Elton John and I have all these fuzzy memories from when I was too young to properly form them, of sitting in the backseat of the car listening to Elton, or lying in my mum's lap while I had a fever, up all night just me, my mother and Elton John. Don't you have anything like that?"

He stared at her.

After a while, she left to get a new drink and Vegeta stood alone in his corner thinking about how hard he would have to work to catch up on what he'd missed by coming out tonight. He had a headache.

When Bulma came back she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him through the throng until they were out the back of the house, at the bottom of a rolling green hill. She began climbing it and because he had nowhere else to go, he followed her until she lay down on her back near the top, looking at the stars. He sat beside her and they said nothing for a while.

"For my fifth birthday," Vegeta said at last, "my maternal grandmother gave me a recording of _The Magic Flute_."

"High-brow."

"I didn't understand it. I don't speak German."

"Do you really not like this party?" She looked up at him from where she lay on the wet grass. He stared silently out at the town, spread before them in a mosaic of yellow-lit windows and dim main street lamps. He didn't seem to notice she'd spoken. "Vegeta?" she said again, and he turned his head to give her a disinterested look.

"I don't."

"What _do_ you like?"

He turned his face back to the village below and there was another silence.

"I don't know yet", he said at last.

* * *

Goku woke when the door opened. He rolled over, covers rustling, and squinted into the new light of Vegeta's desk lamp.

"Where've you been so late?" he asked in a bleary voice.

"A party", Vegeta said. It took Goku a moment to get over his shock.

"Then how come you're back so early? No good?"

"No good", Vegeta agreed, sitting down and opening a book.

"Kind of late to start that."

Vegeta looked at him. "I can move to the common room if I'm disrupting you."

Goku pulled his quilt up over his face. "Don't worry. It's okay. Just try to get some sleep eventually."

* * *

"How was your jewellery party?"

Bulma squinted at Yamcha and tried to divine what he might mean. "Huh?"

"Your jewellery party. Maron told me you went to one last night."

"Huh?"

"Where you all sit around and look at jewellery then mail order it?"

Bulma blinked slowly. "Sure," she said. "It was great. Maron told you about it?"

"Well Maron mentioned a party, and I was wondering why I wasn't invited, then she explained it was a jewellery party."

Bulma looked down at her toast, which seemed to be staring back at her in a manner more accusatory than one usually gets from toast. Had Maron really bailed her out on not inviting Yamcha to the party? She wouldn't have done that if she'd known Vegeta was going, of that Bulma was sure. Not that it had really been worth taking him. He'd wanted to come home as soon as they got there, like a cranky toddler.

"Hey, have you seen my sunglasses?" Bulma changed the subject abruptly.

"Your sunglasses? I don't know, don't you usually keep them in your satchel?"

"Yeah." She frowned and pawed at the aforementioned bag. "But I haven't seen them since yesterday morning. I thought I might have left them among your stuff at some point."

"Nope. Sorry, babe."

"Well, I've got to go. I'll see you later." Bulma stood up in a hurry and dashed off before Yamcha could finish telling her she hadn't finished her breakfast. He looked at the doorway for a moment, puzzled, then shrugged and ate the toast off her plate.

* * *

"Hi."

Goku looked down at the small boy in front of him and smiled. "Hi. If you're looking for Vegeta, he's down at the track right now."

"Nope." Tarble reached into his bag and handed a crumpled piece of card to the older boy. "I am turning sixteen next week. Do you want to come around my place this weekend for the party?"

"Uh," Goku scratched the back of his head. "Sure, but why invite me? Don't you have your own friends to invite?"

"Of course I have friends," Tarble replied in a snotty voice. "I just don't like it when my parents make Vegeta come and play sports and things with us, so I thought if I invited his friends then _you_ guys can all go play rugby with my cousins and _I_ can sneak off with my friends to go fishing."

"I like fishing", Goku said, looking at the invitation. "Do you guys have a pond?"

"There's a lake. And you're not invited to come fishing. You're invited to keep my brother and cousins entertained. No fishing."

Goku gave Tarble a dubious look. "I'm not sure Vegeta wants me to entertain him."

"You can bring some of your other friends if you like. I don't really care."

The taller boy brightened. "Oh, okay then." Maybe Krillin or Bulma could show him where this little museum was. "Do I have to bring a gift?"

"Please don't. You will have to make your own way there, though."

"No problem. I will see you there." Before Tarble was even out of sight, Goku had whipped out his phone and sent off a request for Raditz to drive him (as well as an invitation for Raditz to join them at the party), and another message to his parents, asking them to buy him a new fishing rod. Next up were invitations to as many of his fellow students as whose numbers were stored in his phone. This weekend was going to be awesome, he just knew it.


	16. Chapter 16: Last Tasteful in 1986

Thanks to everybody who reviewed! Vervaine (sorry this update wasn't nearly as quick), Seren McGowan (I'm glad that you're finding so many of the different threads in the story interesting, and not just the V/B or omgromance stuff), getalover (woo hoo!), Lady Lan (thank you! I really feel like the story is 'working' if somebody can see something happening and connect it back to something that was said like … ten chapters ago. Makes me really happy.), MooQuack (it could yet happen in a later chapter!), Shades of Crimson (I'm glad you're still enjoying it, and really pleased you like seeing 'all the rest' of the characters pop up. I find it quite fun slotting in some of the characters you rarely see utilised in AUs, like Mai, Ranfan and Haski), AmberRae (here it is!), sally and DbZlover (hope you guys will see the new chapter go up despite the long wait)

As well a thank you to anybody who added this to their alerts or favourites, and anybody who read my drunken late night one shot. I think I'm going to have to start sending my little replies as actual replies to people who submit signed reviews, because the author note is kind of turning into a monster at this point.

So here we go:

**Chapter 16: Last Tasteful In 1986**

Vegeta had gone home with Tarble on Friday night and taken his entire library with him. It felt weird for Goku, to be lying in his bed next to all his own mess, without the other side of the room in its usual state of precision. It was bothering him to sleep in this room without being able to hear somebody else's breathing, too. It was different from sleeping alone in his bed at home. He kept jolting out of his almost-slumber with the half-formed thought that Vegeta was so late to bed Goku was going to have to get up and find him.

Goku had never thought himself one for routine, and it was strange to be slapped in the face with how easily he could become so attached to the routine trappings of his accommodations.

But he was glad for Vegeta's absence in the morning, when the exodus of lower sixth-formers from their Saturday activities made it obvious just how many people Goku had actually invited to somebody else's party, and how many he had offered lifts to.

He had invited Chichi with the vague notion that he might be able to talk to her and apologise for their misunderstandings in the past, but Raditz had pointed out that it would be only courteous for Goku to have Krillin and Oolong sit in the back with him, and let the young lady sit up the front.

For some reason that made Chichi giggle like an idiot and Goku found himself not above making a low comment to his other friends that she was acting like a retard. He couldn't tell if she heard him, but guessed not by the lack of tears and by the fact that he still had all his vital and non-vital body parts.

He fell asleep on the way and drooled on the window. Oolong made a joke about Goku, and then Chichi made a joke about boys. Krillin made a show of claiming her joke was sexist and the three boys in the back roared with laughter while Chichi huffed and Raditz shook his head, chuckling slightly.

Raditz parked in one of the spaces provided for the little museum out by the road, since space inside was probably intended for guests who were properly invited. Goku lingered a little by the cottage turned museum, looking in at the window display of books and worked metals, but nobody else was interested and he didn't feel like trying to articulate why he wanted to see inside; not with Chichi there. He crunched up the long drive. It was a much longer walk than he or Raditz had expected, but both the scenery and the company made it less arduous.

As soon as they could spot open lawn and familiar faces, Krillin and Oolong raced off to catch up with Yamcha and the girls. Chichi lingered and Goku thought maybe she was waiting to talk to him, too, but when he approached her she darted off towards the crowd.

"Go on and have some fun, then," Raditz urged him.

Goku pushed at the grass with his shoe. "I guess I didn't think that you might not have fun at this party, huh?"

Raditz ruffled his hair. "It's fine, Goku. I'm sure your friend has some older relatives I can talk to. Besides," he grinned, "I'd hate for you to miss out on all the fun I had at your age just because you're at some stuffy old boarding school. Best time of your life to get pissed as hell; no employers to worry about."

"Well, that I can do." Goku gave his brother a thumbs-up sign and a goofy grin before heading off to join his friends.

* * *

The girls (which had become Goku's shorthand for thinking about Bulma, Lunch and Maron as a trio, sometimes accompanied by an extra like Ranfan or Haski), were wearing bikinis and lounging near what really was a big old lake, pretending like they were getting tans instead of turning blue with cold. The boys had been banished from their company after Yamcha made one too many digs about the fact that Bulma only ever burnt instead of getting a tan, so they were wandering closer to the house. All of the Königs' cousins seemed impossibly big and brawny to be closely related to the boys Goku knew.

"You probably can't find Vegeta because he's a midget lost in a sea of giants," Oolong said.

"Oh, yeah, like you can talk," Goku replied, flicking both Oolong and Krillin in the head. "You're probably right, though. Tarble looks so tiny with his extended family."

"Like a little girl."

"Hey I dare you to go say that in front of Vegeta."

Oolong cringed. "I've got this hunch that if I tried it, I'd be the one coming away without a rod and tackle."

"Oh," Goku exclaimed, "I just remembered Tarble said you can go fishing in that lake."

"You really need to learn a thing or two about segues, man."

"Oo, those look really fun to ride around on." Oolong shot him a withering look. "Maybe Vegeta's inside. Let's go in. I want to go in."

Oolong looked at Krillin, who shrugged. "We are invited guests. Or Goku is, anyway."

Yamcha raised his hands, palms forward. "Not me, you guys. I'm going to go back and hang out with the others. See if I can get them to put some clothes on before they get hypothermia."

The other three waved him goodbye as he headed back down to the lake.

Goku had been itching to get inside the house, which wasn't really a house at all, but more of a manor, he thought, or maybe even a palace. He wasn't sure what the exact criteria was for a house to be called a palace, but this was pretty palatial. It looked like something sightseers would pay to get into and only be given a tour of one wing, but go away with a camera full of poorly-shot photographs of elaborate furnishings and old artwork in gilded frames.

He practically danced up the back steps and into the enormous rear entry-way. It had that exact postcard listed building feel he'd been expecting, and it seemed bizarre that anybody could live this way.

"Wow," he breathed, "I reckon Orange Star must be the most expensive school in the world if anybody who lives here goes there."

"Nah," Oolong replied dismissively. "It's no Swiss chalet with a helicopter pad."

Krillin rolled his eyes. "What Oolong means is that Orange Star is unique not because it's the most expensive, but because it combines prohibitive cost with a policy of requiring students to be seriously gifted – not to blow my own horn, of course. Some of the kids would definitely be lounging in a sauna in Switzerland right now, if they weren't really spectacular at what they do."

"If we were at school in Switzerland we'd all get our own individual rooms" Oolong added sulkily.

"Some of the students don't seem, um..." Goku struggled to phrase his query politely. "All that … special. Academically."

Krillin grinned. "Well, my friend, not ever genius has to be a social misfit. Some of us are quite personable." Oolong snorted in the background. "But I guess you're thinking of Maron?" Goku nodded sheepishly. "Part of it is that she's a legacy; her dad went here, and both of his parents went here and so on. But she still wouldn't get in if she didn't have something going for her, and she's an amazing musician and apparently a great artist, although honestly I think her paintings look like a kid did them. The music thing is undeniable, though."

"There's some kid in third, too, who's a legacy and he's shit academically, but apparently he's so great with equestrian stuff he'll be a shoo-in for the Olympics when he turns sixteen," Oolong added. "Already winning medals all over the place."

"By 'shit'," Krillin interjected, "Our porky little friend of course means that both Maron and third-form-boy are reasonably capable academically and would be considered above average in most schools, but would never be accepted here without their other talents to rely upon."

"Oh" Goku said, wandering slowly around the room. "But these guys could go to the most expensive school if they wanted, right?"

"Sure," Krillin added, "so could Maron, although I don't know about that other kid."

"I bet it really pisses Tarble off that he's not sailing on a lake in Rolle instead of studying in a library so close to home." Oolong said with a laugh.

"So you could all afford to go to the expensive school but you don't?"

"Don't get me wrong, Orange Star is expensive. It's one of the top ten most expensive in the world, it's just not the number one most expensive. And no, I guess I don't mind telling you that on the scale of scandalous wealth among our peers, Oolong and I both rank pretty low. Neither of us would be enjoying the countryside over there if we weren't smart enough for Orange Star. We would probably both be at other schools in the top twenty most expensive."

"It's kind of complicated," Goku confessed, "because I kind of just think of all of you as 'rich' and it's weird to think that anybody could have so much money and still not be filthy rich in other people's eyes."

Krillin shrugged. "It used to get to me, when I was younger. Things like how we'd get shit about being new money, but Bulma wouldn't so much because hers is new money but there's just so much of it. And you're going the wrong way, buddy."

Goku let his friends steer him around the building. At one point they opened a door and it felt like they were stepping into a different home. All the elaborate fittings and wallpapers were in place, but once you crossed through that doorway all the ridiculously expensive knick-knacks and antique furniture pieces were gone, replaced with a cleaner, more modern style that no doubt still cost a fortune. He hadn't noticed before, but faced now with a room holding family photographs on the mantle and a cabinet full of engraved trophies he realised that aside from the slightly creepy oil paintings of dead ancestors there was very little that was overtly personal amongst all the decorative trinkets in the other parts of the house he had seen.

It occurred to him for the first time that a family of four would not live throughout every room in this enormous manor and it was comforting to think that at the end of the day the Königs did not in fact eat caviar at a table with golden claw feet and lounge upon antique couches, but instead had a reasonably normal dining and living set-up. Most comforting at all was the photo framed above the trophy cabinet, of two very small boys sitting atop two very fat ponies. They looked similar in age but Goku could tell which was Tarble and which was Vegeta by the fact that one was giving the camera a gap-toothed grin and the other wore a perfectly solemn expression ill-suited to the chubby little face.

Goku laughed. "Did Vegeta really used to look like that?" he asked, pointing at the picture.

Krillin shrugged. "That's younger than when he started at Orange Star and we met him but sure. Hey, Oolong, don't you think it's weird that this is exactly the same as last time we were here? My mum goes on a decorating binge once a year and replaces every single piece of furniture."

"Really? Mine would never. Everything just gets mud all over at our place, though. You'd practically think they let the pigs inside the house some days. Only thing she does is the kitchen, but last time she had an extension put in to expand it so Dad says she can't do anything to it now until another five years have past."

"Five years?" Krillin whistled low. "My mum would go mental. She'd be out there with her interior designer decorating the, uh, I don't know what pig houses are called."

"Lucky you. He won't hold out, anyway. She's started talking about doing up the bathrooms instead and having those in a constant state of flux would bother him a lot more than just the kitchen."

Goku thought it was strange that anyone would just 'have' an interior designer, the way you had a doctor you saw regularly, but he didn't comment. He knew that on some level Krillin and Oolong took pride in being just a little bit more 'ordinary' than some of their peers, and he didn't like to spoil

that illusion for them if he didn't have to. Anyway, if he wanted to prove they weren't ordinary all he had to do was point out that they went to a school that offered dressage or croquet as options for Saturday morning activities.

"What are you doing in here?"

The three friends turned in unison to see Vegeta standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He didn't look happy, but he never really did so Goku ignored the expression.

"Hey Vegeta! You're so adorable."

Goku thought he had known what anger looked like before now. He hadn't. This was a new level. "What did you just say to me?" the shorter boy grit out from behind clenched teeth. Next to him, Goku heard Krillin and Oolong swallow hard.

He pointed to the photograph. "In that picture, with your brother, on the ponies. That's so cute. I never would have guessed you were such an adorable little kid. I'm so impressed; do you have any actual baby photos because I bet those are even cuter."

Vegeta ignored his question. "What are you doing in here? What are you even doing at the party?"

"Oh, well, Tarble invited me to the party but he said I was supposed to be spending time with you so we could all play sports with your cousins while he went off and did stuff with his friends, so I came to find you. I brought Krillin and Oolong because A: they are my friends and B: they know how to get around this house and I don't. Cool house, by the way."

Vegeta sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

Goku knew that look. "Did you stay up all night studying instead of sleeping? Oh, man, Vegeta, how come even when you're at home with your real mother I've still got to be your mother? How hard is it to just sleep?"

Vegeta gave him an incredulous look. "Holy crap, Goku," Krillin hissed, "what part of 'once punched a guy's teeth out' don't you understand?"

"Maybe it's the 'once'," Vegeta growled. "If that word's a problem, I can take it out of the equation right now."

"Holy shit," Krillin squeaked. "We're about to die in a living room that hasn't been redecorated for at least five years." He looked around. "Probably ten."

"This is not how I pictured the end" Oolong moaned.

"If we were going to die in this place it could have at least been among the expensive antiques."

"There's no spring left in this couch. My body is going to rot on a sagging couch."

"I think they bought this rug in the eighties. I don't want my corpse to be found on a rug that was last tasteful in nineteen-eighty-six."

Goku tilted his head to one side. "Are you guys serious?"

Krillin squinted up at him. "About dying? Yes. About the décor? Well, it is kind of crappy. About my number one concern being the décor in this particular situation? I deal with stress by making jokes and right now I am very stressed by the fact that your room-mate is going to murder me."

"Oh, he wouldn't really hurt you. It's fine."

"Come here." Krillin grabbed his friend's arm, hard, and twisted it until Goku turned around to face away from Vegeta with his head bent conspiratorially close to Krillin's. "Listen," Krillin hissed, "I know that for some unfathomable reason you actually kind of like that guy, but you only just met him. We've known him for years and, trust me, _he will hurt us_. He's not a nice person."

"You do know that turning in the other direction doesn't stop you from being perfectly audible?" Vegeta drawled from behind them. Krillin's head whipped around and, if possible, the nervous look on his face grew even more confused and panicky. "I can hear you."

Krillin turned back to Goku. "Okay Goku. I need you to stay here and distract the goblin while Oolong and I run away very fast. This may not end well for you in a physical sense, but you will live on in our hearts as a hero."

"Did you just call Vegeta a goblin?"

"Did neither of you notice your pig-farming friend running away while you were making your pathetic attempt at being secretive?"

Goku raised his hand. "I saw him. He was probably looking for a way back outside. There's no windows in here for him to climb out. Is there a certain size a house has to be before some of the rooms can't be constructed without windows? Like it reaches, uh, there's a word for it. Krillin? Any ideas?"

Krillin shrugged.

"It's got to do with nuclear stuff. Fusions or fissions or crap like that."

"Goku we've got more important things to worry about right now."

"Critical mass. You're both idiots. Get out of my house."

He stalked past them looking as regal as a person can while carrying a tin of Pringles. Goku leant over to Krillin and asked him "So would it be Critical House Mass or Critical Window Mass, do you think?" but instead of waiting for an answer, trotted off after Vegeta shouting "what flavour are those Pringles?".

Krillin waited for a moment, then reluctantly joined them.

* * *

"And that's right about when I realised university was never going to be for me. I dropped out and went on a three month bender in Amsterdam which, by the way, best three months ever. One hundred percent recommend."

Raditz raised his hand for a high-five and Chichi, giggling nervously, tapped it gingerly.

"You going to drink that bubbly I got you?" He raised his own empty glass and Chichi giggled again.

"Oh, yes. I'm just, uh, yum!" She took a big gulp of the champagne and smiled wide but tight-lipped. She wasn't a drinker at home, or a partier at school and the taste was both unfamiliar and slightly unpleasant. On the other hand, Goku's brother obviously _was_ a drinker and she didn't feel like alienating the only person on this entire estate who felt like paying attention to her.

After they'd arrived everybody had scattered. Goku, Krillin and Oolong had gone to meet up with the rest of their little group, and Raditz had insinuated himself into the horde of adult Königs nibbling on _hors dóeuvre_ up near the manor. Chichi had tried to find somewhere she fit, but the people from her own year at school weren't particularly interested in talking her, and those from Tarble's form knew she wasn't one of them. She certainly didn't fit in anywhere with the König family youths, which seemed to have divided up into two groups, one of which was involved in serious discussions about politics and one of which was involved in serious discussions about sports.

So she had just floated around the outskirts of the group. Somewhere around the west side of the house the lawn gave way to an elaborate Elizabethan knot garden and Chichi was spending her time examining it. Although they didn't have a knot garden, back home the Mao family maintained more of these formal gardens and less of the still-productive wooded and light farming areas that she knew the König estate featured as it moved further away from the family home. When she was younger Chichi had thought all gardens grew naturally in beautiful designs and never wild, weedy or woodland.

She had probably been more upset to learn that plants were as unpredictable as anything else than she had been to learn Santa wasn't real, but the formal garden still fascinated her.

Chichi was there for a while before Raditz came over, looking for a place to have a smoke. He'd chatted with her, or more accurately _to_ her, for a little while, then left. She was surprised when he came back, and with a drink for her, too.

But she didn't know what to say to him. It was hard enough for her to relate to her schoolmates, ostensibly from similar backgrounds to her own, let alone to this man who was not only much older than her, but flaunted his lack of finesse and obvious lack of belonging at this social tier as though it was a mark of pride. He was very different from Goku, who was doing his best to fit in. Raditz didn't care.

"So how come you're not with the other kids? Waiting for your boyfriend to have a little fun behind the hedges?" He nudged her with his elbow and kicked at the plant next to him.

"I don't have a boyfriend", she told him in a hurry. Then, embarrassed by how enthusiastic that had sounded, she added "and that's Germander."

"Germander. Hmm." Raditz made a few polite sounds. "So you're good friends with my kid brother, hey?"

"Yes", Chichi replied, her voice suddenly much too loud. She continued on in a voice not much more than a whisper. "Good friends. We take Home Economics together."

"Ah." Raditz twirled his glass in his hand. "Bit faggy, that."

Chichi's dark eyes blinked rapidly as she processed that comment. "Yes," she said at last. "It is, isn't it?" She made another attempt at drinking her wine.

"He's a good kid, though." Raditz tilted his head to one side slightly. Chichi giggled again and bounced slightly, dipping her knees nervously. "You sure you and Goku haven't got a thing going on? I assumed you did when you got in the car; you look a bit his type."

"No." Chichi shook her head rapidly, then tilted her chin down and looked up at the young man with the widest eyes she could muster. "I would _never_."


	17. Chapter 17: A Pretty Funny Story

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

**Chapter 17: A Pretty Funny Story**

Goku thought it would be easy to get a Pringle off Vegeta. Either one might be shared, because they really must be official friends by now, or he could just snatch one out of the tin, his arms being so much longer than Vegeta's. Unfortunately, the smaller boy had agile hands and hyper-aware senses. Every time Goku thought his fingers were about to close on a salty snack, the tin was out of his reach again. If Raditz or any of Goku's old friends had been as small as Vegeta he wouldn't have thought twice about grabbing them in a hold or lifting them off the ground as methods of crisp-extraction, but that was possibly not the best idea here. He had a feeling man-handling Vegeta would end in blood for all involved.

"Why won't you share?"Goku whined.

Vegeta ignored him and picked up the pace, hurrying past the throng of Königs and guests and moving instead towards the lake.

"And how do you walk so fast? I've got maybe an actual literal foot on you what the hell."

Vegeta came to an abrupt stop. When Goku looked down at him he was frowning. By now, Goku could differentiate a few of the different frowns Vegeta used. This one was like the little sand timer spinning around on the computer screen while the machine attempted to process something confusing.

"Why are all those people at the lake?"

Goku followed his gaze to where a knot of sixth formers lounged on the bank. The girls were clothed again and some of their other classmates had joined them with drinks. Across the other side of the lake some kids Goku assumed were Tarble's fifth form friends paddled in a rowboat or fished off the little wooden jetty.

"Tarble asked me to bring some people so he wouldn't have to hang out with you. You should come and drink with us. I think Tien brought a tonne of beer in case there wasn't any provided."

Vegeta's forehead creased into a different variation of the frown, but this was one Goku couldn't reliably interpret.

"Don't worry. We kept it all down by the lake so your family probably won't spot it, if that's what's wrong."

That must have been a bad guess, because the frown didn't change. Sometimes Goku felt he might as well be a daycare working placating surly toddlers who spoke in secret languages only their families understood. Vegeta looked back across to where his family were gathered near the house. Somebody was marking out a flat space on the grass, maybe to play a game, and another gestured for Vegeta to come over.

"Are they going to play something? You going to join in?"

"Rugby."

He didn't answer the second question. Goku took the chance. "Hey, uh, if you don't want to do that or hang out with your cousins, maybe you could show me the saiyan museum? Everyone else has already seen it, apparently."

Vegeta was slow to reply.

"What is your interest?" he asked, eventually.

Goku shrugged. "My parents tell me I've got saiyan heritage, but my grandpa never mentioned it so I don't know anything about Saiya or whatever. I guess I'm just interested in, you know, my family's past." Vegeta had made it obvious he wasn't interested in helping Goku with non-school things, so he didn't think it was worth making a second attempt at broaching the topic of the weird school, or mentioning that the Sons had seemed so keen for Goku to befriend Vegeta in particular. The stories suggested Vegeta was inclined to break the rules in anger, and he certainly broke them when he wanted to train outside hours, but Goku didn't think he would find the parallels between those things and whatever misdoings had landed Goku a place at Orange Star.

"I'll have to get the key."

* * *

It wasn't often that Bulma felt like an outsider, and she didn't much like it. She was used to being the centre of attention, or at least being able to imagine herself the centre of attention. Today that just wasn't happening. Yamcha still hadn't decided whether he wanted to be sweet or sour since her aborted attempt to find someone new to date. He'd been sent away for too much hovering and leering while she'd been trying to sunbathe, but now he was back he didn't want anything to do with her.

Chiaotzu had made a trip to town when the first six-pack of beer dried up mysteriously fast, and Tien became the most popular boy in the form when he began lurching up from the road, laden down with alcohol and huddled down to avoid detection from the adults further up the lawn. Bulma had an inkling she mightn't like to get caught underage boozing in the garden of anybody so influential with Orange Star's administration, so she sat on the outskirts of the group, throwing little stones into the lake.

"Bored?"

Bulma shot Mai a smile she hoped was polite but didn't welcome further comment. She liked to think that on the Orange Star food chain, Bulma ranked a whole lot higher than Mai, who rarely partied, absolutely never drank, and had few friends.

Mai hesitated but didn't back down. "If you're really bored, I've got a novel you could read in my backpack."

As much as Bulma wanted to blow Mai off, a good book would take her mind off being ignored. A few chapters in and she could probably start pretending it was she who was snubbing he. "All right," she conceded, and crawled over to paw through the pile of bags. "Yours is the blue one, right?"

"Yeah, I think Haski might have dumped hers on top."

Bulma shoved Haski's tote bag out of the way and swore as junk tumbled out of it onto the grass. "How much crap does she keep in here?" She scrabbled around collecting up mascara and old pens from the grass until Bulma found something very unexpected.

In between a worn-out chapstick and a pencil sharpener sat a pair of black sunglasses with BULMA spelt out down the side in diamonds. She picked them up and examined them.

"Hey, Mai?" The dark-haired girl looked up and Bulma smiled at her. "I meant to ask you before, has anyone mentioned seeing my sunglasses around? They've been missing and I thought someone might have picked them up to return to me."

Mai shook her head. Bulma smiled wider than necessary and shoved the glasses in her pocket. "Oh, found the book!"

She pulled the novel out of Mai's bag and left the rest of Haski's things in the damp grass.

* * *

Tarble wasn't happy. He'd invited Vegeta's classmates so they could distract his family, not so they could lie around by the lake getting pissed. His parents hadn't actually stormed down to insist he go make nice with his horrible cousins, but they would be noticing his absence. Tarble was pretty sure that if Vegeta and his friends were up there socialising, their parents wouldn't even look for Tarble. They only really cared about what Vegeta was doing.

Actually, Tarble had kind of hoped they'd be furious when they saw all these uninvited guests rolling up. When they'd asked, Tarble had told them they were all friends of Vegeta's, probably all turned up just so Vegeta didn't have to spend time with the birthday boy, which was at least partially true. He'd expected them to be mad. Instead, Mr. König had pointed out to Tarble that this was an example both of consideration to family, in not wanting to bother him, and of initiative, in that he did it without asking.

Seriously. If Tarble had to hear one more sentence today (_Tarble's _birthday, in case basically everyone had forgotten) which contained the words "Vegeta" or "your brother", he was going to scream.

"Is that your brother leaving the grounds?"

In that moment, Tarble thought some serious thoughts about pushing Gure off the jetty. In the end, the prospect of potential birthday make-outs after the cake-cutting stayed his hand. Instead, he rose stiffly to his feet and began marching around the lake, towards the driveway where he could see Vegeta and Goku leaving the party.

"Tarble?" Gure called after him, blinking her small, confused eyes rapidly and playing with her hair.

"Just going to see what they're doing."

She put down her fishing rod and stood to follow him, but one of their other friends said something he couldn't hear and she sat back down. Even though he knew it was a little unfair, Tarble rather thought she could have had the decency to chase after him.

He was imagining a scene in which Gure was more heartbroken to see him walk over to the driveway, and chased after him. In the scene she was more flimsily dressed and maybe a bit more blessed in certain physical attributes, mainly in-

"Shit!" Tarble hopped back and kicked whatever piece of junk he'd stood on. On the outskirts of the sixth form booze-up, where the bags were piled up, crap was strewn across the grass just waiting for him to stand on it bare-foot. Of course.

"Who left all this stuff on the ground? Pick it up! It's dangerous. It's littering. I'll tell my father you're drinking and he'll kick you all out!"

The guests closest to him looked up with the lazy nonchalance of teenagers who think they've had enough to be drunk. The blue-haired one with the book he knew was Bulma Briefs and she opened her mouth a smug expression, like she was going to say something cutting.

Before she could, the dark-haired one next to her gasped. "Bulma! Did you tip all my stuff out? Why would you do that?"

"No, it's Haski's."

A blonde in the middle of the throng stood up and squawked "what?!"

Bulma's jaw set in a grim position as the blonde stormed over.

"Why would you do that?! Why wouldn't you pick it up? You'd better not have made me lose anything." The blonde dropped to her knees and began scooping things out of the grass. Behind her, Bulma rose slowly to her feet. She placed her hands on her hips with slow certainty, and tipped her chin up. She took a very deep breath, opened her mouth, and the instinct to run hit Tarble hard.

He ran.

* * *

"Anyway, they let me back into the museum but my grandpa had to buy one of those sort of leash things that attach to a harness you strap the kid in. I'm actually banned completely now, but that was from something totally different when I was twelve. Actually, it's a pretty funny story, I think you'd like to hear-"

"If you do not shut up right now you will have a new story about how you got banned from _this_ museum."

Vegeta was holding the door open but he hadn't taken the keys out of the lock yet. Goku didn't doubt that the smaller boy would slam it shut and lock it if he felt so inclined.

"I think you'd like to hear that story some other time, is what I was going to say." He felt pretty pleased with himself on that save. Very smooth. Very natural. "Okay, show me around."

Vegeta stepped through the door, and locked it behind after Goku followed. The building was tiny, just two small rooms, and crammed full of stuff. Goku could tell right away there was too much stuff for him to examine everything in detail today, but he wasn't sure what was important. He stood feeling overly-large and stupid in the middle of the room while Vegeta looked blankly into the middle distance from the doorway.

"Um, do you think you could like give me the tour or whatever?"

That seemed to catch him unawares for a second, but he recovered quickly and glanced around the room. "Do you know anything at all about your family's history and heritage?"

"Nope!" Vegeta's frown didn't change, but Goku had a sneaking suspicion the puffing up of the chest and squaring of the shoulders meant Vegeta was actually _pleased _to have the chance to talk about this stuff.

"The saiyans were a proud people with a strong combat history and a complicated hierarchical culture in which both men and women were afforded status as warriors. Most of the surviving art, writing and other artefacts reference combat in some way, even in the decoration of household objects and formal dress."

He sounded proud of himself and waited expectantly until Goku picked up a heavy earthenware bowl and examined the paintwork, a stylised representation of warriors on horseback. "I don't know if everybody would really like eating off a bunch of guys waving their swords around."

"Clearly saiyans weren't everybody." Vegeta snatched the bowl from Goku's hands and replaced it on its shelf. "They were very insular, and their ability to maintain a persistent and extremely distinct culture for so long with very few influences from neighbours is of great interest to archaeologists and historians."

"Okay." Goku turned around and began reading the caption below one of the photographic plaques that lined the back wall in what looked like a sort of timeline. The place was small, but it was clear a great deal of time, love and money had been lavished upon it. "You know," Goku said thoughtfully, as he reached the end of a passage about an ancient saiyan burial, "I think this is the most enthusiastic I've ever heard you talk. I guess this whole saiyan stuff is pretty important to my parents, too, but my grandpa never even mentioned it, and if they scattered in, what, like the forties? He would have been alive then. I don't get it. Why not ever even tell me about it? I always thought he was Polish."

Vegeta shrugged. "Some places are friendlier to other cultures than others. His family might have settled somewhere talking about his heritage would lead to discrimination or reprisal. Or he might just not want to remember. I don't fucking know."

"Hmm, I guess." Goku found it hard to imagine his grandfather in emotional pain. Grandpa Gohan was a rock to him. "Oh, or maybe he's keeping a secret. My parents told me the whole royal family disappeared Romanov-style, so maybe he's like the secret king but he can't tell anybody because of, I don't know, I haven't thought that bit up yet, but anyway at the end of the movie when they made a movie about it, I'd be crowned the king and decree that all saiyans get to have a new homeland on a space station, or maybe an under the sea city in a giant oxygen dome."

"Oh, yes, Kakarrot. It seems extremely likely that _you_ are secretly the last of the saiyan royalty, instead of assuming they were all murdered and their bodies hidden somewhere, as all the evidence suggests."

"Aw, man, Vegeta. Don't use that 'you're stupid' voice at me. It makes me feel like I'm five years old."

"I honestly don't know what else would be appropriate."

Goku could think of a few things. A nice voice, maybe. A friendly voice. An 'hey, Goku, let's be pals' voice. Even an 'I don't actively hate you and can tolerate your presence' voice would be all right. He didn't suggest any of those things, however, because somebody was banging loudly on the door and an angry little face was pressed up against the glass panel.

"Let me in, Vegeta!"

"What the fuck?" Vegeta scowled at Tarble and made a shooing motion with his hands. "What's he doing down here?"

"Maybe it's time to cut the cake," Goku suggested.

Like Goku, Vegeta had an athlete's voracious appetite, and the suggestion of cake was tempting enough for him to unlock the door and let Tarble stomp inside.

"What are you doing down here, Vegeta? I thought you'd be up with the family, so they wouldn't notice so much that I was off fishing." The anger in Tarble's voice had faded into pleading almost as soon as he'd started talking, and Goku almost thought he could see the exact moment where jealousy gave way to dependency. He watched the two brothers intently, but Vegeta stood silently glaring and it was clear the rest of this sibling spat would only commence once the outsider had left. Goku took one last look at a little metal sculpture of a monkey wearing a breastplate, then headed back towards the house.

He felt a little bad for Tarble. With the wisdom gained by having experienced his seventeenth birthday, Goku reflected that sixteen was a tough age to be, and he couldn't blame Tarble for being sometimes a little dramatic. He would go and play backyard rugby with the König clan, so at least he could feel that he'd tried to do what the kid had asked of him.

* * *

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I still get emails about this story every couple of months, so I guess I can assume there's somebody out there interested in the continuing adventures at Orange Star College. I've always been pretty bad at replying to reviews and PMs, but I do read them and they give me much joy so thank you always.


	18. Chapter 18: No Crust

**Chapter 18: No Crust**

Goku thought the party had been nice. Sure, there was a little bit of yelling down by the lake, but it was mostly drowned out by the noise of the rugby games. And maybe at the cake-cutting Tarble and Vegeta had spent the whole time giving each other death glares, but the cake itself had tasted really good. And yeah, okay, the bit when one of Tarble's comments had made a comment about artists being gay and the birthday boy had run off to his bedroom not to return for the whole afternoon, that bit had been pretty bad.

But overall it was fine and he was in a good mood on Sunday. Talking to Vegeta and seeing that the saiyan stuff was important to more people than just Goku's parents had left him ready and raring to get working on the investigation into this weird school and the Saiyan Society Trust.

Unfortunately, most of his peers were a little less peppy. Most of the boys who'd been at the party were lying around the common room moaning as quietly as they could so as not to disturb one another's headaches. Every once in a while one of the more ill-tempered and less hung over guys, like Vegeta or that bald Piccolo guy, would wander in and find a way to make a cup of tea whilst simultaneously making enough noise to rival a construction site.

So Krillin was out of commission, lying under the coffee table with a wet tea towel on his forehead. Goku had mulled over the possibility of asking Vegeta for help a dozen times, but ultimately he wasn't ready to take the risk that Vegeta might turn him in. That left Bulma, and Goku knew she hadn't been drinking as much as some, so the idea had potential. Somebody told him she was over on the administration floor and he'd rushed over to pry her away from whatever kind of scheduling or academic meeting she might have with the staff. When he got there he'd found Bulma and Haski sitting in the corridor outside Headmaster Lehrer's office. Bulma had a black eye and Haski was crying. Goku tried to walk past as though he hadn't even noticed and the only thought on his mind was whistling a jaunty tune. It probably didn't fool anybody, but it was better than asking what was going on there.

By lunch he'd only succeeded in wasting several hours trying folk remedies for hangovers on Krillin, to no avail. He sat in the cafeteria and poked forlornly at a cottage pie.

"I thought you said it wasn't really a pie if it didn't have a crust."

Goku looked up to see Chichi standing nervously at his table, balancing a tray on one hand.

"The only other thing left was salad." If he had been overheard by a non-English speaker they would have been justified in assuming, from the tone of Goku's voice, that his entire family had recently died in a gruesome accident.

"That's what I have. Can I sit with you?"

She did her big eyes face, and Goku nodded quickly, before it could turn into her big, watery eyes face. He still wasn't sure what to make of Chichi, or what to make of what he'd already been making of Chichi. She was hard to figure out.

Chichi sat down and sifted through her salad without eating anything. "So, did you have fun at the party?" she asked after a long pause.

Goku shrugged. "I guess I had an okay time. I didn't really drink, I guess you didn't either if you're not laid up today. I don't think the birthday boy had a great birthday, to be honest, so I guess technically it was a failed party. Didn't see you around much, were you hiding somewhere?"

She shrugged and popped a cherry tomato in her mouth, leaving Goku waiting for an answer while she chewed.

Chichi swallowed and said "not hiding. I'm just not really a drinker, so I did my own thing." She grabbed another tomato and covered her mouth with her fingertips while she chewed. Goku suspected this shy, lady-like and super-sweet Chichi was a veil she put over the domineering, over-dramatic Chichi that so plagued Krillin, but he was never a hundred percent with Chichi Mao. It could just as easily be that she pulled out the bossy bit as an act and this was the real Chichi. It probably wasn't worth figuring out which of those was accurate until Goku had figured out which Chichi he liked, and which one he found insufferable.

"I met your brother," she said, three tomatoes later. Goku grinned and puffed up with pleasure.

"Raditz. He's pretty cool, hey? He doesn't live with us so it's always good to see him." She didn't answer, and Goku bit the inside of his cheek. He knew most of the people here wouldn't be used to a guy like Raditz. "I mean, I know he can seem pretty rough, but he's seriously great and he's always been there for me. He's a really good brother."

"He seemed nice. I guess you mean he doesn't live in the town?"

Goku shook his head. "Nope. He's been all over and when he came back he couldn't deal with the small town thing. He's living up in West Capital these days, with a couple of flatmates. Apparently they have these wild parties all the time and when I'm eighteen he's going to invite me to one."

"But he seems to come down to the school a lot."

"Oh, yeah, well like I said he's a really good brother, and I don't really know our parents so he's just making sure I'm doing okay."

"I guess he'll come to all the big events, like any finals you get into with your sports." Goku nodded. "And things like the half term concert, and the big stuff at the end of the year."

"Oh." Goku thought about this. "I hadn't thought of that, because I won't be in those but yeah, if I invite him. Are they really good? I mean, should he be coming even though I won't be in them?"

Chichi folded her hands in her lap and nodded emphatically. "Oh, yes. He should definitely come to all of those things."

* * *

This was not the first time Haski had played the role of accused thief. It was, however, her debut as a _wrongly_-accused thief and she did not like it one bit.

"I didn't take her tacky sunglasses," She repeated for the billionth time, her voice still shaky with tears but growing steadier as anger subsided into a dull acceptance of the facts. Bulma Briefs was a curfew breaker and a uniform violator, but Haski had been the class klepto since first form. What Haski couldn't understand was why Bulma would suddenly want to fabricate this story.

"Oh, right." Bulma rolled her eyes. "I forgot they were magical flying sunglasses. They probably put themselves in your bag."

"Ladies." Headmaster Lehrer tapped a pen on his blotter and the girls withdrew into a hunched and sulky silence. "This is a serious allegation. The item in question is worth a lot of money and you know, Haski, the terms on which you were re-admitted for the sixth form."

The parts of Haski's face which were not already red and puffy from crying adjusted their tone to match. Everybody knew she was on thin ice with her enrolment, but that didn't mean he had to go talking about in front of the crazy woman engineering her expulsion.

"What would I even want with them? They have her damn name all over them."

Bulma snorted and tossed her hair. The haughty effect was a little lost behind the black eye, but it was clear enough. "We all know you don't steal because you want the item. You have a problem, Haski." The second sentence she said in a sympathetic tone, but her smug expression didn't change to match.

"Miss Briefs, please." Lehrer held up a hand and Bulma sank back into her chair. Haski smirked. She'd take any small victory right now. "Haski. We know that you have been working on your problems. The issue here is not that you haven't eradicated all your bad habits, but that in this case they seem to have actually escalated. I would like an answer this time when I ask you why you kept the glasses for several days instead of returning them immediately."

The tears began to well up again. She wanted to repeat that the very fact they weren't returned proved Haski hadn't taken them. She kept little things she'd stolen, like pens or keychains, but whenever she'd taken something big or valuable or sentimental in the past she'd always, _always_ returned it later that day, once the thieving rush wore off. "Because I didn't take them," she whined, but she'd already made the full argument several times and nobody was listening.

Headmaster Lehrer sighed. "Bulma, as discussed your rights to leave the grounds during the usual times are revoked for the next two weeks. Violence was not an appropriate response to the situation and if you want to behave like a member of the lower school, you will have only their rights. You may get back to your Sunday now. Within the grounds."

Bulma stood up. Her chair scraping the floorboards sounded much larger to Haski than she knew it could possibly be. Once Bulma left the room, there would be very little time before Haski's parents were called to discuss removing her from Orange Star. Before she left, Bulma leant close to Haski and spoke quietly into her ear.

"I thought we were friends."

Haski looked up at her as Bulma straightened and moved to the door.

"Me, too."

* * *

Vegeta didn't much care for Piccolo, or any of the other students from the tiny nation of Namek. They were too high-and-mighty about the whole vegetarian thing, for a start, and most of them had about as much personality as a rock. If he had to pick one that was less of a shit than the others, though, Vegeta would definitely choose Piccolo. And today Piccolo's initiative was paying off in spades.

Slamming shut a cupboard with as much force he reckoned the door could take without falling off its hinges, Vegeta watched the assembled party victims moan and roll about clutching their heads. Good. He slammed his mug down on the kitchenette counter and pulled out the cutlery drawer with force, causing it to "accidentally" drop onto the floor and scatter cutlery across the common room.

They had been loudly making tea off and on all day. It wasn't like the two of them were working together or cooperating or anything like that. They were just working on the same thing, in parallel. The thing was making everyone else feel as shitty as they did.

Vegeta couldn't really say why Piccolo felt shitty, but the Namekian certainly relished making the others feel that way. "Don't worry," he boomed far too loudly. "I'll get those." Piccolo set about picking up the spilt cutlery, dropping most of them at least once before getting a good grip, and travelling across the floorboards by way of exaggerated stomping. A couple of boys managed to drag themselves away to their quieter dormitory rooms, but for those who remained this noisy hell was better than the hell of direct sunlight streaming right into their faces if they climbed back into bed. The ones with rooms facing the other way were all safely in bed. The lucky ones.

He let the teapot whistle for a lot longer than necessary before pouring into his mug, and when Vegeta turned around there was an intruder standing in the doorway of the common room.

"Hey," Bulma said quietly, as she picked her way across her fallen comrades. "Can you help me with something?"

"You look like shit."

Bulma rolled her eyes and touched the bruising gingerly. "You know what? Still cuter than you. Come on, you're going to disturb someone." She tiptoed out into the dormitory corridor. Vegeta hesitated, then followed her. Piccolo's critical gaze followed him out. Piccolo would not have given up the torment just because some chick pouted at him a little. Then again, Piccolo was a practically asexual douchebag who spent most of his time furiously staring off into the distance like a total head case. There wasn't really any reason to care what that guy thought.

"Look, Goku wants me to help him with this thing but I'm just not in the mood to handle that much cheeriness right now, so I told him I'd do it on my own, and I'm thinking maybe you could help?"

He narrowed his eyes. "What sort of thing? Why should I help?"

"It's just ... a thing. I can't really tell you. But it has to do with saiyans. I didn't recognise the word when we first came upon it, but then we got reminded and, well, once I realised what it was, who knows more about saiyans than you, right?"

She smiled coyly, and perhaps the effect would have been more arresting without the bruise, but Vegeta was unmoved. "I am not susceptible to flattery."

He was extremely susceptible to flattery. He waited for more of it.

"Also, some stuff I've found is in Cyrillic characters. I figure even if you can't actually read it, you could at least say yes or no is it Russian."

"I have things I need to do."

"No you do-on't," Bulma replied in a sing-song voice. "I happen to know you were meant to stay all weekend at home and only come back late tonight, so you definitely do not have things you need to do here today. Besides, when I came up here you were just being mean to people."

Vegeta frowned. She was right, and he wasn't sure how she knew what his plans had been. Maybe she'd heard them from Kakarrot. He and Tarble had both returned early. Their father had some business associates over today, and Mr. König had always been extremely emphatic that when Mr. Frieza was among the guests, the König boys were to be glued at the hip. They weren't getting along well enough right now to spend the day together, so they were back at school. Tarble had always thought the Frieza rule was ridiculous and had wanted to stay at home as long as possible, but the guy gave Vegeta the creeps. He'd rather be at school than at home when Mr. Frieza was visiting, anyway.

"Fine. Show me what it is you want."

She bounced on the balls of her feet excitedly, then bounded into the bedroom he shared with Kakarrot. Bulma flopped down on Kakarrot's bed and pulled from her bag a laptop and a small sheaf of paper documents.

"Okay, I guess the easiest thing to start with would be the papers. Can you tell me what language they're in, at least?"

He took the documents and flipped through a few near the top. "Definitely Russian."

She pumped her fist and hissed "Yes! Can you read it?"

"What are these? Legal documents?"

Bulma shrugged. "I think so? I've been trawling for anything that seems even tangentially related to, uh, the subject of my search, but I don't understand Russian and a lot of stuff seems to be not in English or Russian, some other language or languages."

"That makes sense." Vegeta began automatically to sort the documents into piles according to subject matter. "They appear to be legal and government documents from Leynilegstan, which is a little country with several disparate ethnic groups speaking different national tongues, so they need another language to be the official language of government, the legal system and so on."

"They're definitely from Leynilegstan?" He nodded. "Great! Then I found the right country, at least."

"You said this was for Kakarrot. What is this about?"

Bulma bit her lower lip. She honestly couldn't tell if Vegeta liked Goku or hated him, and if it were the latter, Vegeta would not hesitate to report anything fishy they found.

"His old school was in Leynilegstan. He wanted to sort something out with someone he knew there and he couldn't find them and..." she trailed off. From the cold expression he was giving her it was clear he neither believed her nor wanted to continue helping. Bulma was far from unfamiliar with Vegeta's jealous streak. Even before the race, and that unfortunate second kiss, he'd spent years being jealous of her top mathematics placings, even though he too was always first in his own specialities.

If she hadn't learnt how to counteract it in the last six or so years, she wasn't going to figure it out in the next six seconds.

"Well, thanks. You've been a big help, anyway." She picked up the papers he'd sorted, keeping each pile together, then hesitated in the doorway.

"If it makes you feel any better about your bad weekend, I guess you should know that big fight I had at your place is probably ending in Haski getting expelled, so someone at least is feeling crankier than you are."

She left the 'and it's my fault for turning her in' unsaid, but her voice was so guilty she doubted even someone as emotionally and socially stunted as Vegeta could miss it. She waited for a moment, but he didn't say goodbye or try to comfort her, so she just left.

* * *

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Thank you for the reviews! I'm sorry you guys didn't get the fight scene you were hanging out for. I think the next chapter might be quick to go up as well, but we'll see.


	19. Chapter 19: Not A Robot

Sorry I didn't get replies out to the reviews for last chapter, just haven't had time. Instead, have this chapter I cooked earlier.

**Chapter 19: Not A Robot**

"So, Haski left this morning."

Eighteen looked surprised for a moment before her face resettled into its usual smooth mask. She couldn't possibly be surprised at the news - word travelled fast, and even with their aching heads and dry mouths, the lower sixth had managed to disseminate the information within a couple of hours of Haski leaving the headmaster's office yesterday. Eighteen was probably just surprised Krillin had the nerve to walk into a computer lab and sit down right next to her while she was working.

"I guess you must be pretty happy, hey?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me?" As little as a month ago, the frost in her voice would have sent Krillin running for the hills. By now, his persistence in talking to her had given him an inflated sense of security. He cringed and stammered for a moment, then sucked in a long breath and barrelled on.

"You were pretty mad at her, for the book thing, right? You told me you were going to kill her."

"She isn't dead."

Eighteen always spoke slow and cool and low, but Krillin had attempted enough brief, awkward conversations with her to know this was slower and icier than usual. She was choosing her words carefully, which meant his tentative hypothesis was as good as confirmed. Krillin wasn't sure if confronting her with it was the right thing to do. Well, no, he knew it was the _right_ thing to do, but he didn't know if it was the thing he wanted to do. He could see no end to this that didn't involve all his hatchling hopes being dashed.

"I guess I just want to know if this is what you really wanted. Did you plan it out? Actually steal Bulma's sunglasses? Or did she leave them somewhere by mistake and it was just a spur of the moment spite thing, and then you couldn't get them back out of Haski's bag in time?"

Krillin really, really wanted to believe that Eighteen had seen the glasses left behind somewhere and been overcome with inspiration and righteous anger, then regretted it. But looking at her, knowing the way she would stand silently thinking before speaking, rather than say something thoughtless or embarrassing, he kind of doubted she did anything without carefully considering all consequences. And he was very, very certain that Eighteen was responsible for Haski's removal from the school. Aside from Haski's habit of returning her loot, she had always been so gleefully unrepentant about the whole thing. Even when they put her on notice she'd laughed about it. The heated insistence that she was innocent, as reported by the girls close to her, was not like Haski. The profuse tears, as seen by everyone who'd watched from windows as she got in her parents' car and left this morning, were not like Haski. Krillin wasn't the only one who thought this stunk, but he was probably the only one with a good idea who'd planted the smell.

"Are you planning to report your suspicions?" She sounded totally unmoved.

"Yes. I don't know. No. It's not like I have any proof."

Her fingers began moving over her keyboard again. Krillin had evidently lost her attention. "Then I don't see why you are here."

Her tone was final. The conversation was over. Krillin got up to leave, watching Eighteen's impassive face with a feeling of melancholy. He really wanted to believe that behind the marble façade, Eighteen was a good person. Maybe not an especially kind or compassionate person, and definitely not a demonstrative or gregarious person, but a decent enough girl who just didn't relate to people so well. He dreamt about being the one to show her people weren't so bad, bringing out her human side and discovering her best qualities and most ordinary flaws.

A boyfriend would be sugary nice to her right now and try to understand her point of view, but it wasn't like Krillin had ever had any real chance of being that to Eighteen. He might as well accept that. A friend, on the other hand, would be honest and try to show her why what she'd done was flawed. Krillin could do friend. He imagined the potential romantic relationship dashed upon the rocks and sinking. He took a deep breath and sat back down.

She didn't look up, but her fingers paused over the keyboard for a second before resuming.

"So, Eighteen. Can you at least tell me why this, instead of just turning her in for the book thing? You know she was only hanging on by her fingernails anyway, so she still would have probably got kicked out for that. What's the point of framing her? Just to humiliate her?"

Eighteen folded her arms across her chest and spun her chair to face Krillin directly. Her face was not a glossy shield now. She was actually scowling. She looked pissed.

"Does it matter? Haski was a thief. Why should it matter to you if she were expelled for the one theft she didn't commit, rather than the dozens she did but nobody reported?"

Even her voice, while still calm by most standards, was a little more emotive than usual. Krillin had a feeling she wasn't expecting anyone to realise what she'd done, and even less for anyone to confront or challenge her.

"Don't you think it's cruel? If she got expelled for something she did, she could accept that she did something wrong. Now all she knows is someone hates her enough to frame her for an actual crime. She's lucky Bulma didn't want to get the police involved. And Haski's never going to know who hates her that much or why." Krillin hesitated and fidgeted with his hands. "I know what she did to you was pretty awful. That's why I told you who did it. But I mean, people say those things partly because it seems like you don't even care, and that makes them not feel so bad about it. You just sort of keep on sailing past like you're better than everyone else. It makes people mad, and it also makes them think you care so little about what we think you can't be affected by what we say. I know they say you shouldn't let bullies see you get upset, but you go way too far in the other direction. You basically act like people are bugs, is all I'm saying."

There. He'd ruined any chance of ever having anything with Eighteen, and although Krillin felt like he'd spoken as a friend, he'd probably also ruined any chance of her seeing him as a friend in return. He knew she probably wouldn't pay any attention to what he said, but maybe if she did it would be worth it. She'd have to be happier if she started acknowledging other people and letting them be nice to her. She wasn't a robot; she had to be lonely with her brother gone away.

The frown didn't change, but Eighteen unfolded her arms and rested her palms on her knees. She looked at him with a directness he found slightly unsettling and said "Thank you for your input, Krillin," before spinning back to her computer and getting to work.

The inflection betrayed nothing of her meaning behind the words, but Krillin felt anyway it might be the nicest thing he'd ever heard.

* * *

Making friends was easy, but making friends with _everyone_ was hard. Today, everybody in the whole form wanted to talk about Haski. Goku wanted, of course, to listen to the opinions of everybody he considered a friend. Unfortunately, that was the entire form. By lunch, Goku felt like he'd listened to eight thousand different conversations on the issue and had no idea how he was supposed to feel. He hadn't known her for long enough to feel either way whether she deserved expulsion, or either way whether she'd really done the deed.

Lunchtime was going to be even worse. Instead of eating a hot meal in the cafeteria he had to take a sandwich over to a meeting room to talk about cross country with the other people whose performances earlier in the school year now qualified them for some of the most competitive meets. Goku liked cross country, and he liked talking about games, but cross country was an even more solitary sport than track, and attracted the most anti-social of Orange Star's talented young athletes.

He stood in front of the door and reminded himself that it was good for his friendship project to get the least social people together and talking, because that was how they could make friends. Yeah. This was going to be great! By the end of the meeting they'd all be fist-bumping and cheering each other on to do great in their respective events, and bring honour and glory to their school. Awesome! Exciting!

Totally not going to happen.

Goku opened the door and smiled nervously at the rep group the head of games had assembled for cross country in their age group. Goku, Piccolo and Vegeta for the boys. Eighteen and Chichi for the girls. Haski would have been the third girl, and probably the only one of the group not totally dedicated to antagonising everyone they met. Who was he kidding. If anybody in this room bumped a fist, it would be right into someone else's nose. By the end of the meeting the only cheering would be from the last kid standing, the walls bathed in everyone else's blood. School officials would shake their heads and say "if only cross country weren't such an anti-social sport."

"You're late."

That was Eighteen, but they were all saying it with their eyes. Goku chuckled nervously and slid into his seat. "Um," he began. "Um, so Miss Violet says she wants to try and organise some fitness sessions where all six, um, five, of us can work with her on fitness and motion and managing any injuries, plus a girls' session and a boys' to get some times doing identical courses for the full distance we'll do in championships and stuff."

Goku was avoiding looking directly at Vegeta. It was easier to look at the girls. He didn't have to race them at all. They would do a run about four and a half kilometres, while the boys needed to be timed over about seven. During the rest of the season, Goku had managed never to compete at the same event as Vegeta in cross country, which was the only sport in which they were likely to have to compete against one another. Maybe it would be best if they both lost horribly at championships. It was selfish, okay, but Goku _liked_ being better than Vegeta at running distances. It would suck to come second to him.

"I train best alone." This time it was Piccolo, but once again everyone was in agreement. They nodded their heads and murmured agreements about different styles and training preferences, and timetable conflicts and how certain crazy people did all their running in the middle of the night when everyone else wanted to be in bed. Goku sighed and took a bite of his sandwich. Miss Violet had asked him to speak to the group because he was the most personable, and because she didn't want to wrangle them if she didn't have to, but the responsibility would have been better given to any of the others. They were all the type to just tell the group what was happening and brook no objection.

"I don't have free time for group training. I'll do the timed run so she has her data, but that's it."

"Come on, Vegeta." Goku knew he was whining but he couldn't help it. "Everybody has some free time." Vegeta shook his head. Goku wasn't sure whether he was flaking out because he really was too busy, because he was just anti-social, or because Miss Violet was so sure Vegeta still had trouble with his foot, and was always trying to get him to talk to her about injury management. Whatever his reasons, he was clearly done. Goku let him leave the room without objecting too much.

"Maybe it would be easier if we all gave Miss Violet lists of any times we have available to talk about our running, and she organised some compatible sessions, maybe just for smaller groups if there's no time everyone's available."

Goku smiled. "Thanks, Chichi." The smug expression on her face suggested she just wanted to be the best organiser in the room, especially since she was sitting next to Eighteen, but Goku would take it. He would take it and pretend she was suggesting it to be kind and helpful. "That's a good idea. Is everyone okay with that? If that's what we want to do I can let Vegeta know, and maybe everyone could have an email off to Miss Violet by the end of the day?"

Neither Piccolo nor Eighteen bothered to answer. That meant yes, because if they didn't want to do something they wouldn't be shy about it.

"Great! I guess I will see you guys there." Goku scuttled out of the room as fast as possible. The power of friendship knew no limits, but the patience of Goku did. All those people were on the list of targets for Project: Friendship Circle, but he'd have to be insane to think the best time to butter up any of them was while trapped in a small room all together.

* * *

Once Eighteen and Piccolo had left, Chichi checked her phone for easily the hundredth time that day. She wasn't normally a rule-breaker, but she'd been obsessing over the mobile even during class. It killed her that Haski wasn't responding to any of her texts, but it killed her more to know that while her best and probably only friend had been getting expelled, she'd been trying to manipulate Goku into engineering a potential second meeting of Chichi and Raditz. She should have been thinking about her friend, not some boorish and inappropriate older man.

She shot off another text ('if u want 2 talk i am always here') and slid the phone back into her pocket. It was frying her nerves to check the thing every thirty seconds, but she did not want to miss a text and be a double unsupportive friend. Pippa and Melody, the other half of their foursome, had already jumped feet-first into the gossip pool, and ditched Chichi in the process. It wasn't really surprising. Chichi supposed they'd always been friends of Haski's who tolerated Chichi as being Haski's hanger-on.

It wasn't surprising, but it did suck. Chichi didn't have any other friends, and she didn't know how to make more. Her games were pretty much solitary; cross country in the autumn and spring terms, a bit of dressage in the summer, tennis all year but she didn't do doubles. She had the drama society, but the captains voting this year had made it pretty clear she had no friends there. It was too late in her school career to learn a team sport and be anything but a burden, and she loved the drama society too much to sacrifice her time to another club.

And, ultimately, she just didn't seem to be the type of person people wanted to befriend. Well, except for Goku, and that did not come even close to counting. Anyone who wanted to be friends with absolutely everyone had a serious judgement impairment.

* * *

"And that's why I think we need to do something! It's just not fair." Maron fixed Lunch with her absolute sternest look, daring her to contradict.

"Are you sure?" Lunch fiddled nervously with her skirt and Maron sighed. She'd called a meeting of herself, Lunch and Bulma but Bulma never took Maron seriously and hadn't even turned up. She knew Bulma would have seen the logic of her argument, and Lunch might not trust Maron's judgement but she wouldn't be able to dismiss Bulma's opinion so easily.

"Okay, let's go over it again. Haski hardly ever steals expensive stuff. Haski always returns things that are important to people. She never denies stealing, and she definitely never gets upset enough at being accused to like, haul off and punch someone the way she did Bulma. And finally, the person who knows Haski the absolute most of any of us thought there was no way Haski it was going to stick and spent all day doing her own thing instead of waiting for the verdict and supporting her best friend. That's the evidence, Lunch! I've watched enough policemen on television to know when something doesn't add up, and this crime is like two plus two equals definitely not Haski, okay?"

Maron was not actually a big fan of police programmes, but she was definitely a fan of the policemen in said programmes. That counted. Whether she watched for the plot or for the muscular men shooting criminals, she still watched.

Lunch chewed on her lower lip. "Don't you think if we start snooping around like Haski was framed and Bulma finds out, she'll be really mad at us? I like Haski fine but Bulma's our friend. We're supposed to be on her side."

Maron sighed. For someone who was supposed to be stupider than all her friends, she sometimes felt like the only vaguely intelligent person in the whole world. "Lunch, Bulma feels terrible about the whole thing. If we could prove that somebody framed Haski and get her back in the school, Bulma would be nothing but happy."

"Okay, but the one thing you're missing is why anybody would frame Haski. I didn't think anyone really hated her that much; she's pretty funny, and I mean she even had time to hang out with Chichi, so she's probably nicer than most of us can claim."

Maron frowned, then considered the potential wrinkling and tried for a less damaging expression. This was the hard part. "I don't know. I guess anybody could secretly hate her a lot, if they got annoyed by her taking stuff, and didn't like the way everybody always let her slide. Or one of her jokes could have got someone the wrong way, I guess some of them were pretty mean if you think about it. Or maybe it wasn't even meant to go this far. Maybe it was meant to be teasing Bulma by having her panic when her glasses went missing, and whoever did it figured sticking them in Haski's bag would be a sure way to get them returned the next day without any questions being asked. Then when they hadn't come back after a few days it was too late and they couldn't find time to get into Haski's bag and take them back. I don't know! Why am I coming up with all this, come on!"

Lunch smiled apologetically. "Okay. I guess it can't hurt to do a little Nancy Drew. Let's make some lists. Suspects, motives, reasons we think she didn't do it and so on. You do the creative thinking, I'll assess for logic and plausibility. But if we don't find anything promising by, let's say half term, then we're dropping it, okay?"

Maron nodded vigorously and beamed at her friend. This one was worth the laugh lines.

* * *

oooooooo

Since it's been a while, I'll remind you that Haski was the one who made and distributed the porn booklet about 18, as well as being Chichi's supposed bff but not inviting her to Bulma's party.


	20. Chapter 20: Deeply Disappointed Babies

**Chapter 20: Deeply Disappointed Babies**

"I thought you'd be more understanding because of, you know."

Yamcha sighed and gave Bulma a squeeze before removing the arm he had draped around her shoulders. "I spend one year crazy over baseball cards and nobody ever lets me forget it."

Bulma snorted. "Most kids who go crazy for card collecting don't break into other people's dormitories to steal rare cards from their locked wardrobes. I just thought you'd be understanding of her, having known that ... I don't know, that compulsion."

"Babe, I don't know what you want from me." She scooted away from him and fished a cigarette out of her pocket. Yamcha turned his head away to breathe the fresh scent of the woods instead of her second-hand smoke. He didn't smoke. He had his eyes on a career in professional football, at least while he was young, and he didn't need his lungs in that kind of shape. "I'm trying to be on your side here, agreeing you did the right thing."

She took a long drag and looked at him sharply. Most of the time, Bulma's expressions were overly emotional, or else the sort of doe-eyed faux innocence that tended to get pretty girls what they wanted. Every once in a while she let that drop and Yamcha caught a glimpse of the supercomputer working quietly in the background of her brain. When she looked at him like that he didn't know what she was thinking, and doubted he'd understand if she could tell him.

"Even if it would have been the right decision, I didn't make it. I didn't evaluate the situation and decide to turn her in, I just got mad and started a catfight. Which I lost. I still don't know if turning her in would have been right or wrong, if I'd given myself the chance to make that decision properly."

Yamcha sighed and rubbed his face. "Again. Babe. What do you want me to say? I thought I'd been saying the right things, but now you're annoyed at me for trying to take your side?"

The cigarette rolled over and over between Bulma's thumb and index finger until the indentation in the middle left it useless. She stubbed it on the damp log and threw it amongst the leaf litter.

"Is that the motivation?"

"Huh?"

"Keeping me happy, doing what I want. Is that your motivation here?"

Yamcha hesitated. He could tell this was boggy ground, but he hadn't figured out yet where the sinkholes were. "Yes," he said at last, because at least it was the truth. "Of course I want you to be happy. That's how you treat a lady, right?" He laughed and winked on the last part. She smiled but didn't join in the laughter.

"I think I've figured it out."

"The Haski thing?"

"The us thing."

His stomach sank. This was either another argument, or he was about to get dumped again. Bulma was so much trouble, half the time he just wanted to get rid of her, but whenever she was gone he missed her like crazy.

"You think women want to be treated like a lady, or a princess, or a goddess, and fair enough. A lot do." She met his eyes with that machine-brain stare. "But I want someone who just treats me like a _person_."

Yamcha didn't understand. He could understand the sentiment in abstract, of course, but Bulma had always been demanding of attention, admiration, constant devotion. As far as he could see, she was the ultimate in wanting to be treated like a princess.

"You think I don't treat you like a person."

"Would you keep going back to a friend who constantly ditched you then came back demanding all your time and attention? Cave to their every demand? Agree with everything they said just to keep them happy? I think you put me on a pedestal and keep all your true, honest feelings and opinions to yourself because I'm too much hard work when we disagree."

"Nobody likes disagreeing, Bulma."

She shrugged. "The world would be a boring place if everyone agreed on everything. You'd never re-evaluate anything if nobody ever challenged you on it. You can't gain momentum without an initial push."

He looked at his hands. "I guess I don't want to lose you."

"I guess I like you better when we're not together, and you don't feel like you're on eggshells with me."

Yamcha sighed. Maybe they really did want such different things their lives were incompatible. These were all thoughts they'd had before, all things they'd said before, but having the conversation now, without the heat of an argument, made him realise that the problem wasn't their differences were insurmountable, but that surmounting their differences wouldn't bring either of them happiness. They were just wrong for one another.

"Neither of us will ever make the other one really happy, will we?" His voice was sad, and Bulma's nod the same.

"Every relationship involves sacrifice, but I think the specific things we shelve to be with one another are not what we should be sacrificing."

This was the first time they had broken up without shouting or crying or recriminations. It was the first time they'd broken up without actually verbalising the act of finishing the relationship. Somehow, though, Yamcha felt it was the most final of any split they'd ever made.

* * *

"So Bulma's been trying to find out any details she can on the name change and ownership, and figure out what the law says about how that sort of thing is supposed to be done over there, but all their laws and government websites and everything are in Russian, so it's a bit hopeless."

Krillin nodded absently. Goku could tell he wasn't listening, but it was good to voice his frustrations anyway.

"Is something wrong, buddy?" He rapped his knuckles gently on Krillin's shiny head, which always pissed him off, but Krillin just waved the hand away distractedly.

"I have a dilemma," Krillin said. He stopped walking and looked at a cloud thoughtfully. Goku poked him between the shoulder blades.

"Can you have your dilemma while we walk? I have a tutoring session to get to."

"Yeah, sure." Krillin picked up pace to keep beside Goku, taking two steps for each of his friend's. "I just ... I know something about, uh, something."

"Okay." Goku nodded slowly, hoping this was headed somewhere but ready to listen either way.

"This something had really bad consequences for someone, and knowing what I know, I know it wasn't fair. If I tell the right people about what I know, there's a chance the unfair consequences might be reversed."

Goku had an idea that the something and the someone might be related to the number one topic of discussion around the school right now, but clearly Krillin wasn't ready to spill that, so Goku kept mum.

"But if I told, there would probably be bad consequences for another person. And arguably, it would be fair, because that person did the something that caused it all. But I also know they did the something in retaliation against another thing, which the first someone did to the second person beforehand."

Goku squinted and replayed that through his head a couple of times until he thought he understood. "Okay," he said again.

"And the consequences the someone might face for the earlier thing might well be the same they did for the unfair something. So is it even worth trying to make things fair, if the only thing that might change is the reason for one person's troubles, and adding extra trouble onto someone else?"

"Well," Goku scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "It would be fair for the second person to get bad consequences, wouldn't it? If they did something bad? And the reason they did it would be taken into account, I'm sure."

"Yeah. I guess." Krillin sighed. "I just think that the second person reacted that way because they don't know any better way to deal with conflict, not because they're actually a bad person. I don't want their reputation to be ruined because they reacted poorly to an emotional situation, any more than I want the other someone to be blamed for something they didn't do."

Goku stopped where the path to the upper boys' dormitory house split off from the path to his classroom tutoring session. Krillin stopped beside him and kicked a pebble.

"I guess that you just have to weigh it all up. If the punishment is the same for the first person, whichever of the two things they take the blame for, maybe fairness only matters if there's a difference in how they'd feel about being punished for each thing, and if the second person deserves some kind of punishment, even if you think it should be a small one. Maybe if you thought the only way it would be fair would be for the truth to come out, you could still tell the people in charge why you thought the second person deserved lesser consequences."

He thought he'd probably grasped that the root of Krillin's dilemma was related to Haski's expulsion, but he had no idea what to make of the rest of it. It was impossible to tell if he was being helpful.

"You think things can be fair without being the truth?" Krillin looked thoughtful, as though he hadn't spent a lot of time in his past considering honesty or fairness.

"I think..." Goku spoke slowly. He wanted to make sure his mouth didn't get ahead of his mind on this one. "I think kindness is important. Sometimes the truth, or a really inflexible sense of justice or whatever, doesn't help anybody, only hurts them. I think as long as you're sure you've thought of everybody involved, and not put one person above another, the kind choice is always fairer and better than the unkind choice."

It was what he believed, but Goku had learnt long ago not everyone shared his philosophy on forgiveness and charitable thought. He wouldn't be surprised if Krillin scoffed.

"Thanks." It was no scoff, and the slow but emphatic nodding suggested the thanks was heart-felt. "Goku, you may be a total no-hoper in class sometimes, but you are good at people. I've got a lot to think about, see you at dinner."

Krillin loped off towards the dorms and Goku headed to his session, wondering what exactly Krillin knew which could lie so heavy upon him.

* * *

Haski, Haski, Haski. Everywhere she went, people talked at her about Haski, and everybody had a side. Her close friends automatically dropped into soothing mode, telling her she couldn't be blamed for reacting like that, or even that she was justified in doing so. Other people either congratulated her on having the balls to get rid of the habitual thief, or derided her for the loss of a well-liked student and apparently, although Bulma hadn't known this before, an absolutely vital part of the championship netball team.

She didn't want sympathy and encouragement, nor to be guilt-tripped for hurting someone's friend. She wanted to talk to someone with no allegiances or firm opinions either way. She could think of only two, each for very different reasons, but either would do right now.

Bulma knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an answer.

"Hi."

Vegeta spun around in his desk chair and glared her, like that hadn't stopped being scary at least four years ago. "The fuck? You're supposed to wait for an answer before you walk into someone's bedroom. And you, specifically, are not supposed to _ever _walk into this bedroom, because you're not allowed in this part of the building."

"Uh-huh. What, are you worried I'll walk in on one of you getting undressed or wanking or something?" She glanced around, but there was no sign of Goku. He would have been a much more pleasant confidant, but this would do. "I don't know why that worries _you_. I'm the one who'd be throwing up all over your carpet and bleeding from the eyes."

He turned back around and returned to his study. Bulma considered sitting on Goku's bed, but it looked like he hadn't sent the linen down to be washed all term, so she crumpled Vegeta's neatly made bed instead.

"What are you studying?" She crawled up to the head of the bed, where it butted up against the desk, and sat on his pillow with her arms folded on the edge of his desk.

He curled his left arm around his work, blocking her view, and kept writing. "What do you want? If this is about those stupid papers then fine, I'll translate them."

Luckily, Bulma had the stupid papers in her bag. She pulled them out and dumped them on top of his work. "Thanks! Actually, that's not why I'm here, though." He moved the stack of documents to one side, pulled a sheet off the top and turned to a new page in his writing book. Bulma supposed he'd agreed only because it was, arguably, a good language study opportunity. She resumed her position resting on his desk and sighed. "Can I talk to you?"

That made him look up. "Why?"

She smiled. "You don't have to respond or anything. I think I want to talk about Haski to someone who doesn't have a strong opinion about the whole thing."

"I have a strong opinion. I strongly don't give a fuck about you or her."

Her smile grew wider. Maybe she didn't want to talk about Haski. Maybe she just wanted to hear someone say they didn't care, it wasn't the end of the world. He was clearly trying to ignore her while he worked, so she leant forward further, leaning her chin on her forearms, and studied him in profile. She knew that would bug him.

It was funny how different he looked this year. He'd never really hit any teenage growth spurts, and as recently as last year he'd had a little kid's face to go with the height. Tarble still did, but some time in the last six to eight months all the baby fat had disappeared from Vegeta's cheeks and he'd started looking like the mean bastard he'd been underneath for years. Bulma could remember him getting so mad he almost hit a new teacher when, at fifteen, she'd thought he was a preteen kid who'd wandered into the wrong class. She couldn't help but giggle at the memory, and he finally gave up and looked at her.

"What exactly do you want?"

"I don't know. I guess I was hoping Goku would be here and give out some fortune-cookie advice that would make me feel okay about getting a friend expelled and breaking up with my boyfriend," Vegeta rolled his eyes. "For real, forever. And about calling my parents to talk about all this shit and my mum takes like fifteen seconds to say 'oh but you're so smart and pretty, you're definitely capable of working things out' and then ditches because setting up some charity ball is always, always more important than finding out what I'm up to, and all my friends just want to talk about the one thing I don't want to hear and it just _sucks_!" She punched the pillow, then flopped onto her back and started to cry.

He stared. What were you supposed to do when someone just started bawling right in front of you? Angry, shouty Bulma he could handle. He even almost liked angry, shouty Bulma, or at least found her more interesting than most people. A Bulma that just lay there with an arm over her face crying was new to him. What was the etiquette? Should he go back to his work so she didn't feel like someone was watching her cry? Would feeling like she was being ignored just make it worse? Would cracking a cruel joke make her cry more instead of laugh? He didn't want more crying. He wanted her to leave. This whole scenario made Vegeta feel deeply uncomfortable.

After a few minutes of Bulma weeping and Vegeta staring, she started laughing instead.

"Haha." She lifted the arm off her face and grinned at him evilly. "This must be familiar to you, huh? I bet every girl who ends up in your bed cries like a deeply disappointed baby."

"Oh, fuck you."

She sat up and wiped her eyes delicately, straightened her uniform and stood up. "Thanks for not saying anything stupid. I know it's hard for you to go that long without acting like you were raised by wolves. Anyway, don't tell anybody I cried or I'll cut off something you'll really miss. I promise I don't do this ever. I'm just kind of stressed out with home stuff right now, and everything's all at once. Probably PMSing."

His expression changed for confusion to disgust. "I do not need to know that."

"Come on, I thought you were taking biology? These things are natural. Anyway, thanks for helping with that stuff for Goku. Also, he told me you got on the cross country squad and he gets to race you and Piccolo at a fixture this weekend, so I just wanted to say I hope you get a win this time."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"

"I don't know. You work really hard and I know it's important to you. And fair's fair, one win each. Even." She opened the door to leave but stopped in the doorway. "Also, nobody really likes you so I guess you've got to have something good in your life."

She laughed and slammed the door behind her so quickly his "I hope you die" was growled at an empty room.

* * *

oooooooooooooooooooo

O such an ~emotional~ chapter. I probably can't keep that up for long.


	21. Chapter 21: We Meet At Last

**Chapter 21: We Meet At Last**

"Chichi! We meet at last."

"Maron. We had English lit. together this morning."

"Um." Maron looked at Lunch uncertainly. "Okay. Well, this is my associate, Lunch."

Chichi folded her arms across her chest. "Otherwise known as my room-mate."

"Oh, yeah." Maron waited for Lunch to bail her out, but she just shrugged. Clearly since this was all Maron's idea, Maron would be the one who had to handle the hard-line questioning and questionably legal interrogation methods.

"What is this about? My theatre studies class is about to start, so hurry it up."

"Uh, yeah, I know. I'm in that class." Maron scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Chichi didn't seem particularly wounded. Lunch checked her watch. She had a different classroom she needed to hike to. "Okay, so, um, is it true that you were super mad at Haski for not inviting you to Bulma's party? And you had to hear about it from Lunch instead? You must have been like a thousand percent betrayed. She was supposed to be your best friend, right?"

Chichi opened her mouth, then forced it closed and took several very deep breaths before speaking. "What are you insinuating?"

"I'm not insinuating. I'm just asking."

"You _are_ insinuating." Chichi's fists opened and closed, white-knuckled. "You're insinuating I was somehow involved in getting her kicked out, right?"

"I never said that," Maron replied, triumphant. That was how they got them in the movies. They let the suspect reveal something they shouldn't know, and that was the evidence they were the murderer.

"It was pretty obvious," Lunch whispered in her ear, and Maron deflated.

"If I was upset about someone considering me less of a close friend than I thought, why would my response be to make them even less close by getting them kicked out of school? What kind of logic would that serve?" Chichi turned to Lunch. "You know, I can kind of see why this bimbo would think that, but you must know me better than that."

"Hey!" Maron planted her hands on her hips and gave Chichi a severe look.

Lunch shrugged. "Honestly, Chichi, I don't know you at all."

"We live together!" She slapped her desk for emphasis. "We talk to each other every single day."

Lunch was visibly uncomfortable. "It's just sharing a room. It's not like we're best friends, I just don't want to be rude to you."

Chichi's mouth hung open like she'd been slapped. "You only talk to me to be polite?"

"And I guess it would be awkward if we were always silent in the dorm."

Maron put a hand on Lunch's shoulder. "Okay, partner, I don't think she did it. She's just a crazy person who thinks people like her even though she's mean and boring. Oh, sorry Chichi. I'm sure you're nice once people get to know you. Also, Lunch, make a note that for our next interrogation we should bring sunglasses so we can put them on at the end and look really cool." She smiled at Chichi as though nothing had been said and sailed past to her desk. "We're solving a mystery."

* * *

Goku chewed the inside of his mouth and tried not to feel too disappointed. He was trying to be friends with everyone, after all, so it shouldn't really matter what group he'd ended up in for cross country training. But it was hard.

Miss Violet had split them into two smaller groups to train, as there wasn't any time she could arrange to suit all five. Goku had ended up with Piccolo and Eighteen, which sucked. His first pick would have been Chichi, and his second would have been Vegeta. For friendship purposes, though, he probably would have tried to arrange it so Vegeta and Eighteen ran together, and then Goku ran with Chichi and Piccolo. Goku thought Vegeta and Eighteen would be great friends if they stopped sniping at one another. They had a lot in common. If only Eighteen weren't so tall, Goku would have already tried to engineer a way for them to accidentally fall in love, like in the movies.

Eighteen was stretching her long legs against the exterior wall of the games hut, and Piccolo was staring off into the distance, as usual. Goku thought he might be the only one listening to Miss Violet talk about strategy and mental readiness for the big competition this Saturday, so he compensated by listening super extra hard.

"And Goku!" He stood even straighter and shot Miss Violet a snappy salute. "Stop staring at me like that. It's very strange." Goku slumped back onto his bench. All that effort to listen and he'd only come off as strange. "So we've talked about what mental processes let each of you down, individually. Do you have plans to counteract them for this weekend?"

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Goku realised the question wasn't rhetorical. "I'm going to try and follow some other people on their practice runs so I don't get psyched out running beside them on Saturday."

Piccolo raised a brow, as if to suggest he thought Goku a brave soul. It was no secret Goku had himself tied up in knots over what would happen to his room-mate situation in he beat Vegeta at something again.

Eighteen looked up for just long enough to say "I won't run for the rest of the week, just swim and stretch and try to clear my head", then bent back into a deep hamstring stretch.

Miss Violet nodded encouragingly. "Piccolo?"

Piccolo's attention returned to whatever he was always looking at on the horizon. "I will meditate."

Although her ponytail covered most of her face, Goku could see Eighteen's eyes roll.

* * *

That night, Goku pretended to keep studying after Vegeta neatly packed away his prep, closed his laptop and left to run. He waited a few minutes, then pulled on his own trainers and headed out. Goku didn't know exactly what route Vegeta ran, but he'd have to do more than one lap to make up enough distance, and Goku did know the spot where Vegeta had injured his foot, so he jogged down to that path and waited by the side.

After a while, he heard footfalls on the path and stepped out.

"Hi!"

Vegeta stopped dead and stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

"I came to run with you. Because we'll have to run together on Saturday." He smiled hopefully. Vegeta couldn't really stop Goku from following him, but he could probably spew enough venom to make it really not worth Goku's while.

"We won't be running together. We'll be running against one another."

Goku shrugged. "Well, it's not championships so we're really better off making sure the whole team does well, if it comes down to it, so the school as a whole ranks well. It's not until championships that we're really racing for an important title. I know you like to win and all, but for this weekend individual results are probably less important than the team."

The answer was a contemptuous huff. Under his breath, Vegeta muttered something that sounded like "it's not just about what I want" and took off, loping past Goku down the crooked path. Goku hesitated for only a moment, then took off after him. He took the fact that Vegeta didn't immediately shoulder charge him in the gut and leave him for dead at the side of the path as a good sign, and decided not to push things by talking.

* * *

Goku lay on top of his quilt fully clothed, with shoes, making the bed all sweaty and dirty. On the mirror universe side of the room, Vegeta sat straight-backed at his desk, having already taken a quick shower after returning from the run.

"Can you just go to bed already? Whatever you're studying can wait." Goku moaned. "Night is an evil time to run. The cafeteria isn't even open to grab a snack after. I need to be asleep so I can ignore my stomach." His stomach growled in agreement. Goku clasped his hands over it and groaned.

"Fine. If you don't want these translated any more, I won't do them." With one sweep of his arm Vegeta pushed a large stack of papers off the edge of his desk and into the wastepaper basket sitting between the two desks. The bin wobbled dangerously, but stayed upright.

"Huh? For me?" Goku sat up and swung his feet to the floor. He squinted at the papers, then hopped over onto his desk chair so he could reach them for closer examination. "What are these? Russian?"

Vegeta put his pen down and squinted quizzically at Goku. "Briefs gave them to me. She said they were for you." Goku stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth thoughtfully and Vegeta quickly amended to add "I only agreed because it's good translation practice for my exams."

"Bulma gave these to you?" It dawned on him now what these were related to. Goku wasn't sure whether he should be grateful Bulma had the nerve to ask Vegeta for help, or angry that she'd cut someone else in on his secrets without asking his permission. "What did she say about them?"

Vegeta snorted contemptuously. "Nothing. She came around yesterday looking for you and crying everywhere."

"Crying? Bulma doesn't cry. Unless you mean screaming and shouting."

"If that's what I meant I would have said it," he snapped.

"Well, I mean why was she crying? I guess you've known her longer than I have, but that doesn't seem like her."

"I don't know." Vegeta shrugged. "Women. Do you want these translations or not?"

Goku wanted to insist Vegeta must have a better idea of Bulma's state of mind than just '_women_' but he'd clearly used up all his goodwill for tonight. "Okay, yeah. If you give them to me now I can get some opinions from Bulma and Krillin tomorrow."

Vegeta tore a number of pages from his notebook and handed them over. Goku had to squint to read Vegeta's handwriting, which was neat but small and dark and dense. He managed to fit two lines of writing to each line printed on the paper. "Holy shit, Vegeta. You're going to go blind writing tiny like this."

The other boy said nothing, but looked pointedly at the papers in Goku's hand, then back to meet Goku's eyes with an expression of guarded curiosity. Goku shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Um, anyway thanks, and I hope it helped with your class." He didn't like keeping secrets from people who were helping him, however reluctantly, but he hadn't been the one to ask for this help.

"Well, I'm going to sleep now."

Goku kicked off his shoes and dove under the covers before Vegeta could voice an objection to the secretive behaviour.

* * *

Yamcha spent most of his spare study period on Friday wandering the grounds. He had an essay to work on for economics, but he'd been feeling aimless and philosophical ever since the most recent breakup. Or maybe philosophical wasn't the right word. Thoughtful? The sensation was very much like thoughtfulness, very much up in his head, but Yamcha couldn't name a single actual thought he'd managed to fully form.

The doors to the big hall, where they held whole-school assemblies and basketball games, were open, so Yamcha stuck his head in as he wandered past.

"Hey, Maron."

She looked up and smiled in the beatific manner of those whose minds never weighed heavy. It was the sort of smile that made your own mind seemed lighter just for seeing it. Maron and Goku were the only people Yamcha knew who could pull it off.

"Hi, Yamcha."

He didn't have anything better to do, so he entered the hall and walked to where she knelt, head bent over a piece of stretched canvas almost the width of the hall.

"Whatcha doin'?"

She made a small noise and kept going for a while before resting her brush on a rag and smiling up at him.

"For the half term concert upper and lower sixth are collaborating on this canvas. We all designed it together." She looked upon it like a proud mother, then frowned gently and picked her brush back up. "I'm trying to fix what Oolong's done here." She sighed and worked in the offending area with some blues. "We have to let him hang a framed piece or exhibit a sculpture for the parents to view before the concert starts, but I've no obligation to let him ruin our collaborative work."

Yamcha nodded. He didn't know much about art. "I like the border. It's really intricate."

She nodded, blue ponytail bouncing in time with the movement. "That's Zarbon's design, but Ranfan and Jeice have been doing the brushwork. He has a great feeling for the pretty details, but he's impatient with paint."

"Do you have a main bit?" He squatted next to her and watched her brush transform Oolong's crude anatomical illustration into a rushing wave smashed against the rocks of someone else's part of the picture.

"No. I usually work in abstract. I'm overseeing the unity of our colour palette, and helping people who have trouble manipulating the medium. Even some of the uppers ask for my help." Her face was flushed with pleasure, and Yamcha supposed around here she didn't often get to be a voice of authority on anything. "I don't want this to be just another student mural. I want a unified, tonal piece. Something evocative and musical." She sighed and cocked her head to one side, listening to something nobody else could hear. "Whether I use a brush or my violin, it's really the same in the end. It has to sing to your heart. Do you know what I mean?"

Yamcha had no idea what she meant, but she looked right into his eyes, and he looked at that perfect porcelain face streaked with paint and all he could say was "yeah".


	22. Chapter 22: Pretty and Practical

**Chapter 22: Pretty and Practical**

Orange Star always made a strong showing in cross country. The uneven paths through the woods and the hilly fields to the other side of the school buildings provided excellent practice, and this morning the more junior representatives for Orange Star had come away with multiple placings. Goku was happy for them, but he hated having to wait so long for his division. He paced impatiently in front of the rest of the Orange Star runners, until he spotted a familiar head of short purple hair heading up from the car park.

"Oh, hey, Miss Violet's here."

The sports teacher jogged the last few metres to her students and enquired after the morning's results. Behind her, Vegeta followed with his attention on his gym bag.

"Lucky you didn't have to ride the bus," Goku told Vegeta. The shorter boy dumped his bag on the ground and began to search through it in earnest. "So bumpy. How was your game?"

Vegeta shrugged. Goku didn't know any more in-depth questions he could possibly ask about the polo match Vegeta had been at that morning, so he changed the subject.

"What've you lost?"

"I think I forgot to pack my spare shoes."

"Wow, it's not like you to be that disorganised. You should have packed them last night."

Vegeta looked up just long enough to give Goku a withering look, then dumped everything out of the bag onto the grass.

"Is something wrong with those shoes?" Goku squinted at them. His own shoes were all different types, whatever caught his fancy when he happened to need new sneakers, but Vegeta had about eight different pairs all the same, just in case. He didn't like change, and he didn't like surprises.

"Sole's pulling off."

Goku scratched his head. "I'd let you borrow my spares but I don't think our feet are the same size." Vegeta grunted and waved him away, but Goku was determined to help. He turned back to the others. "Hey, does anyone have a spare pair of trainers that might fit Vegeta? Hey, what size shoe do you even wear?" Goku reached for Vegeta's foot, but his hand was swatted away.

Vegeta took off his shoes and began attempted repairs on the broken one.

"I can't believe you packed superglue and not spare trainers."

Chichi wandered up from behind Goku and swiped the shoe Vegeta wasn't working on. "Oh, Vegeta," she said sweetly. "Eighteen wears the same size."

Hearing her name, Eighteen got up and took the shoe. She read the size and nodded. "I do. You must have very small feet for a boy."

Goku could see Vegeta twitching, but he figured the rage would probably hold for now, since Vegeta wouldn't like to be kicked out without getting a run. "Maybe Eighteen has a spare pair you could borrow today?" he suggested, without a whole lot of hope. It was always hard to tell what Eighteen was going to do. Her expressions betrayed nothing.

"I do. I'll let you use them. We already had to scratch Haski, the school doesn't need anyone else to forfeit."

Vegeta looked up at her and frowned. "Really?"

Eighteen nodded and said "why not?" in the same flat voice.

He looked at her shoes, which were an ordinary white and blue pair, and appeared to have a similar level of support to his preferred sneaker. Running in different shoes was not ideal, but it was better than running in broken ones. "All right," he said at last, but despite Goku's elbow in his ribs, Vegeta couldn't quite manage the 'thank you' that should follow.

"I'll go find them."

Eighteen went off to sort through her things and Goku beamed at Chichi and Vegeta. "This is nice! Everyone's being nice today, I think. It was nice of you to suggest Eighteen's shoes might fit, Chichi, it was nice of her to offer a lend, and it was nice of you to accept, Vegeta, without even making a fuss about girls' shoes." He looked around for the final member of the lower sixth cross country team, and finally spotted him. "And it's nice of Piccolo to, um, stand over on that hill on his own and not bother anyone, I guess." Goku squinted at him in the distance. A dramatic wind ruffled Piccolo's running shorts.

"Here." Eighteen returned and Vegeta held out his hands. She tilted her head to one side and waited.

"Thanks," he muttered.

She smiled. "You're welcome." Eighteen brought her hands from behind her back and placed in Vegeta's a pair of bright pink trainers.

* * *

"I was hoping you'd place, Vegeta." Eighteen slid into the seat next to him, trapping him in the back corner of the bus. "So they'd take a photo of you in your new kit."

Goku flopped down on the seat in front, occupying its neighbour with his gym bag, so nobody from another year would take it and deprive Chichi or Piccolo from a prime position. "Yeah, it's a shame nobody in ours got top three. Credit to you girls, though."

Eighteen flipped some sweaty hair out of her face and smirked. She'd placed second in her division, and Chichi sixth.

"The real shame," said Chichi, still slightly out of breath as she stood waiting for Goku to move his bag, "is that somebody stole Vegeta's old shoes while he was running."

Goku moved his bag and looked thoughtful. "Maybe someone threw them out, because they were broken?"

Vegeta attempted to move his feet, still clad in brilliant pink, behind his bag and under his seat. Chichi giggled, but when he shot her a sharp look she ducked her face behind her seat and pretended not to exist.

The last few students boarded the bus with Miss Violet and another games teacher. Violet spoke to the bus driver then exited the bus to drive back in her own car. The bus rolled out of the car park and Goku watched the people taking down the officials' tents recede into the distance with a sense of disappointment and lost opportunity. He'd need to train harder and start taking things seriously if he wanted to do well at championships.

"I've had a thought." Eighteen announced to what Goku was thinking of as their little group, long after the chatter from the younger years had faded into exhausted silence.

"Congratulations," muttered Vegeta, in harmony with Piccolo, who was sitting across the aisle.

"We have same-sex marriage for one of our debate topics this term." Vegeta sat up a little straighter and looked at her, ready to put aside differences and plan if it meant crushing the debate team's longstanding rival school, Red Ribbon Academy. "You can borrow some more of my shoes. I think it would make the other team nervous about seeming homophobic when they make their points."

Vegeta folded his arms over his chest and opened his mouth to object, but apparently decided it wasn't worth it. He looked at his feet, then out the window, and leant forward to rest his forehead on the glass, hitting it a little harder than Goku thought might be healthy for a skull.

* * *

"You got a minute?"

Bulma looked up and pushed the safety goggles back from her face. Goku hadn't been able to find her until Krillin insisted they try the workshops, despite the fact that she didn't take any manual arts classes. And there she was, welding away like a pro.

"Sure." She tossed a sheet over the pile of metal she'd been working on and abandoned goggles and gloves next to it. "What's up?"

"Vegeta translated this stuff for me, so I was hoping you and Krillin could help me take a look at it. I guess you probably have better things to do on a Saturday night, but I've got more games and training on tomorrow, plus a tutorial session in biology to help with my sport sci. and home ec. and-"

"And it's fine, Goku. If I had so many great things to do tonight I wouldn't be in here working on my tech. design project." She laughed, but she looked a little sad to Goku's eyes, and he was surprised. Bulma always had parties to sneak out for, and he thought she'd be living it up more than ever now she and Yamcha were officially official about their breakup. "Let's take it to the tea room and have a look."

The tea room in the long, low building which housed the workshops and art studios in the shadow of the lower year dormitory buildings was kept locked, and supposed to be reserved for sixth formers taking fine art or a manual arts course, but Bulma pulled a key from her pocket and let them in.

"How'd you get that? I can't really imagine you getting your hands dirty enough to need one."

Both Krillin and Bulma stared at him with quizzical expressions for a moment, then Krillin burst out laughing. "Sometimes, buddy, I forget you haven't really been here long."

Bulma winked. "I'm pretty _and_ practical, Goku."

Goku meekly retreated to the tea room sofa. He really felt a part of this community now, and it was odd to be faced with the fact that some of the things he 'knew' about his friends were just assumptions, and that they'd all known each other for many more years than he had, even if they hadn't always liked one another.

"So this is what we've got." He spread the translations out on the coffee table and Krillin swore quietly about the tiny writing. "Vegeta wanted to know what it was for."

He couldn't quite filter out the reproach from his voice, and Bulma shrugged sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Goku, but we were never going to find out anything without getting them translated."

Krillin rested an elbow on the table and his head on his hand. "We still might not. Most of this is legal babble. We can make some educated assumptions based on logical interpretations, but law's finicky even in English. Things don't always mean what they seem."

Bulma drummed her fingers on her knees. "Honestly, Goku. Even if it weren't legal documents I don't know how much use I'd be at this point. Getting the info is all computers, that's easy for me. This stuff ... there's a reason I'm taking maths, sciences and engineering subjects."

"So it's a dead end?" Goku picked up a sheet of paper and struggled through a dense paragraph about licensing requirements for educational institutions.

"Well, like I said, we can make some inferences. And you can try calling them up again. Plus it's nearly half-term. You could take the four days and pop over to the continent to see the school yourself."

"Oh, that's a good idea!" Bulma poked him in the ribs like that would inflame his enthusiasm. "See some sights. I bet you haven't ever had the chance to take a lot of continental long weekends."

Goku fidgeted his feet. "I don't think, if my parents are up to something weird, that they'd pay for me to go snooping around there." The expressions on Krillin's and Bulma's faces plummeted. Goku supposed neither of them had ever had to consider parents saying no to a long weekend overseas. "Is there anybody who would have a better idea how to understand the translated documents?"

Krillin frowned. "Maybe Eighteen? She has some interest in stuff like this. Or even Yamcha a little?"

"Vegeta would be useful if you were willing to talk to him about it. He does mooting and I think his dad's plan is for him to be a lawyer, and he can read it in the original Russian and he has Latin as well." Bulma gave Goku her best apologetic eyes. "I wouldn't have asked him to look at this stuff in the first place if he wasn't your best option."

Goku sighed and shuffled the papers together. "Krillin, if you get time just browse through them and let me know what your educated guess is? Other than that I guess I'll try the phone number again and see if I can ever get an actual answer."

* * *

Maron and Lunch had started sitting together on the grass at lunchtime, their heads bowed so close together the two shades of blue hair fell into one another and tangled up like a child's drawing of a waterfall. They would whisper and write in a little notebook, and if anybody approached them the subject would turn to their English lit. analyses in just enough time for them to claim it had been their topic all along. Goku believed them, and it had worked him up into a panicked frenzy about his own level of work, which certainly did not extend to working on assignments during his lunch break.

Krillin did not believe them.

In theatre studies Maron had suddenly come over all interested in mystery and intrigue, which might not have been such an obvious clue something was up if not for the fact that she was usually only interested in comedies of manners. Lunch was a little harder to read. Krillin thought it was because she was already so practiced at hiding her psycho side, but whatever the reason it didn't matter. Maron had given them away.

He tried for days to get a look at their notebook, or catch a note of their conversation, but in the end they came to him.

"What can you tell us about Chichi?" Lunch asked. Krillin was sitting on a tree stump outside the dining hall, fishing pieces of mushroom out of a chicken pot pie. She leant forward. Krillin wanted to believe it was just so they could talk in a more confidential tone, but he'd seen her pull the same move before, then beat the living daylights out of the guy when he glanced down her top. She'd been in a blonde phase then, but Krillin wasn't going to try his luck with blue Lunch either.

"What do you mean?" He flicked another piece of mushroom away, then replaced the pastry lid. He was sick of hearing about Chichi. With half-term on the horizon, and with it the Spring concert and the theatre society's one-act play, he was getting plenty enough of Chichi and plenty enough of hearing about Chichi from his club. He did not need to be hearing about her from anyone else.

"We think Haski was framed and Chichi was involved," Maron said, bluntly and a little too loud. Lunch's eyes narrowed into slits and she looked sidelong at Maron for an evil moment before her face softened back into its serene expression. It had been a good decision to avoid peeking at her bra.

"You think Chichi did that?" He was pressing down on the pie top too hard. It cracked and fell into the pie, squishing the innards out all over Krillin's fingers.

Lunch sighed. "We don't necessarily think she did it, but it seems likely she was involved. She had a big rift with Haski recently, you know."

Krillin wiped his fingers on the stump and dumped the pie's remains on the grass. "A lot of people have had rifts with Haski. Convincing people not to stay mad is pretty much her number one talent."

"Chichi has never liked Bulma, either. The chance to get back at them both might have been tempting. We just want to know if there's anyone you think Chichi might talk to about it if she was still feeling bitter?" Lunch straightened back up.

"Or if you know anyone else with a grudge against Bulma or Haski?" The question made the colour drain out of Krillin's scalp and Maron tilted her head to one side. "You okay?"

"Yeah, um. You know, just kind of shocked at the idea anybody would bother with a scheme for framing someone. It seems a bit far-fetched."

Lunch shrugged. "Think about how much effort Haski put into some of her pranks. It might not have seemed over-the-top to put the same thought into getting back at her."

"She hasn't done too many this year, though. Didn't get the chance I guess. There was that thing with Snake." Maron stopped for a moment to snicker. "But Snake got Haski so good at the end year concert last year, she wouldn't be bitter about one more prank." She frowned and tapped her fingers against her hip thoughtfully. "She did pants Goku during class, didn't she? That doesn't really count and he wouldn't want revenge. And there was something else this year, right?"

"Eighteen," Krillin said faintly, before he could stop himself.

Maron's face lit up. "Oh, yeah! The booklet. That was hilarious. Anyway, she hardly even seemed to notice that. Whereas Chichi is liable to get all weepy if you make one little joke about friends not inviting each other to parties. She's a Bitter Britta."

"Thanks anyway. We're going to check out Chichi's other friends and then talk to her about it before half-term. If she turns herself in they'll probably accept an excuse like she didn't mean for it to go that far, and things won't be too bad. If she won't we'll just keep gathering evidence and turn her in ourselves." Lunch sounded totally calm and rational, as though she weren't trying to run a fellow student into the ground. But, Krillin supposed, if they really thought Chichi got Haski expelled, maybe it was reasonable to try and right things. Maybe he should be trying harder to right things.

"Everyone likes Haski," Maron said, as a parting shot while Lunch walked away. "Nobody likes Chichi. If she has to go, it'll make life so much easier. Especially for you, right?"

He was trying not to encourage her, but Krillin couldn't help muttering, "sure would," before waving good-bye.


	23. Chapter 23: Episode of Krillin

**Chapter 23: Episode of Krillin**

And then nothing happened.

Half-term was preceded by a flurry of examinations and assignments due, fixtures to be fitted in before the holiday weekend and work to be done on the performances and exhibits for the Spring concert. Goku, driven into a lather by his failure at the cross-country meet and what he thought to be the incredible study habits of Maron and Lunch, shadowed his roommate's study and training schedule with such diligence Vegeta had started hiding in the stables with a laptop and study materials.

It turned out Goku was a little afraid of horses.

It also turned out Goku was Krillin's best friend. His old best friend, Oolong, while still a close compatriot and hilarious company, seemed to spend more time hanging out with Yamcha and that Puar kid. Krillin was too busy with his play to even think about this shift in the equilibrium until after the concert was over.

The parents clapped with what Krillin hoped was more gusto than politeness required and his actors filed back onstage for another bow. When they came off again, shining with pride and stage makeup, he pulled Chichi aside.

"That was a great performance," he said, because he was feeling great and willing to share it even with her. He'd given her the lead for the one-act because she wouldn't be lead in their main performance at the end of the school year.

She ducked her head and lifted her hands and actually smiled at him. "Thanks," she started. "I-"

Chichi looked at something over Krillin's shoulder and the moment of camaraderie was gone.

"I have to go," she said.

He turned around. Maron was standing a few metres away holding her violin. He'd already started looking for some other catalyst before it registered that Lunch was standing next to her. Lunch was not a musician or an actor, and had no reason to be backstage. Chichi strode right up to the pair and all three disappeared from view. All the joy and fulfilment that had been swelling up in his belly was suddenly threatening to vacate the premises. Forcibly.

Krillin rushed down the steps from backstage into the hall and scanned the crowd. Then he rushed back up the steps and scanned from a higher vantage point.

He made his way back down and pushed through the tangle of legs towards the refreshments table. If he knew Eighteen even a little, and he liked to think he did, she wouldn't be interested in the performances or the artistic displays and would spend all night standing by the refreshments, coolly nibbling on the same piece of brioche.

And there she was, although it wasn't brioche. It was a cracker with pâté. He had been close.

"Eighteen!"

She looked down at him without surprise or other immediately identifiable emotion.

"Krillin."

"I need you to come with me." He grabbed her hand and this time there really was surprise. Her angular eyes widened and the fine eyebrows lifted only a little, but it was a real reaction. He pulled at her arm and she followed him out into the night air.

Krillin breathed white into the cold air while he gathered his thoughts. Eighteen looked down at him and took a nibble of her cracker.

"I need to talk to you," he said at last.

With her free hand she smoothed the cold-weather frizz from her hair. Her arms looked so white and skinny in her sleeveless dress outside the heated hall.

"Sorry, I should have let you get your coat."

"You are not wearing one."

He shrugged. "I need to talk to you." Another big breath. He watched the exhale hang in the air between them. "It's about the Haski thing."

"We have already discussed this." She punctuated the sentence with another nibble and a step towards the light of the doorway.

"No, no. Wait." He reached out and took a step forward, but didn't touch her. "This is different. Lunch and Maron think Chichi did it. They're going to try and convince her tonight to turn herself in, and if she won't they're going to make a formal complaint alleging she got Haski expelled as revenge."

One eyebrow arched. "And you think they have found enough 'evidence' to make a complaint worth their while?"

"I guess that's what I'm asking you. Is it possible they have? Is there any way they could have something that would suggest Chichi specifically, or more so than Haski?"

Eighteen looked at him like he might look at a particularly interesting blade of grass. She blew out warm breath like cigarette smoke. "Wouldn't that suit you? Haski, whom you like, returns the prodigal student and Chichi, whom you loathe, is punished?"

"It's not just about me."

The corner of her mouth actually turned up into a smirk. He could see her teeth. "You think because I'm distant I don't know anything about any of you. I have been here just as long as you have. It is always 'just about me'. For all of us."

Krillin shrugged. "Things change. Look, I'm not asking you to turn yourself in, even if I think that's the right thing. But at least if it's possible Chichi could catch flak for this, try and stop that. Write the principal a letter. Tell Maron and Lunch you saw Haski take the glasses. I don't know, whatever would stop this whole thing from just getting worse."

"Why would you imagine I'd bother?"

Krillin shrugged. "Just stubborn I guess. I really want to feel like you're a person I could be friends with."

He grabbed her blue fingers and gave them a quick squeeze before heading back inside.

* * *

When Krillin's parents asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday during half-term he'd impulsively suggested they visit Leynilegstan. His parents had exchanged confused glances and he'd hurried to explain that his new friend had gone to school there and it was apparently both naturally beautiful and culturally intriguing. It was all true officially, so Krillin told himself it wasn't really a lie, even if he knew it was actually all made up.

In the end, they couldn't take the time to come away. Krillin only got one day at home before he found himself sitting alone in an airport at four am waiting for a plane to some bullshit backwater he was already regretting suggesting visiting.

Best seventeenth birthday ever?

As he boarded, Krillin reminded himself it wasn't his parents' fault. He'd told them Goku would be meeting up with him in Leynilegstan to show him some sights and celebrate the birthday. In fact, Krillin didn't want Goku knowing he was even thinking about visiting the country. He wasn't sure what exactly he was hoping to find or what he thought it would tell him, and Goku would just get all worked up thinking Krillin had some kind of brainwave, when all he really had was a brainwobble.

His mind was all over the place lately. Krillin wasn't sure when he'd stopped being a wise-cracking observer of human behaviour and become so invested in other people's problems, but between Goku's transcripts, the drama club balancing act and the whole twisted mess that was anything to do with Eighteen, Krillin was starting to feel like he spent more time worrying about other people's feelings than his own life. He wouldn't be able to tell how okay he was with this energy sacrifice until he got results back for his half-term assessments.

Krillin spent most of the flight drifting in and out of abortive imitations of sleep. In his dreams Eighteen was caught weaving elaborate frame-ups against most of the student body, but just when she was about to be expelled Krillin turned up with the real Kakarrot Son, angry at Goku for taking his place, and Goku was sent packing, looking back at Krillin with mournful eyes.

He woke up in a different land, literally and metaphorically.

The capital city of Leynilegstan was a close-packed jumble of grey apartment and office blocks hidden beneath a thick layer of graffiti. Outside the airport, drivers grabbed departing passengers by the arm to try and hustle them into taxis without agreeing on a fare beforehand. Krillin became suddenly and uncomfortably aware that he was a very small young man holding a very expensive suitcase and he had never been to a developing country before.

With a deep breath and a pat of the pocket to confirm his phrasebook was in place, Krillin swerved through the crowd to what he perceived as the least pushy of the drivers. He explained where he wanted to go, speaking very slowly then finding himself embarrassed when the man responded in imperfect but serviceable English.

"Halfway," he offered. "You get other car in town halfway."

"You can't take me all the way?"

The driver shook his head, then looked Krillin up and down and hesitated. "Very expensive. But easier. Outside city, people have no English."

"It's okay, I have a phrasebook." Krillin tried to sound more confident than he felt. On short notice he hadn't been able to find anything for the local language. Like some other countries in this part of the world with marginal or diverse native tongues, Russian was the official language of legal documents and government communication, but now Krillin was wondering if the smaller villages would be so rustic even his Russian phrasebook might prove useless.

This driver chatted amiably about local history and the best sights for his leg of the trip, but the second driver struggled to find enough English for even the basic niceties and Krillin fell back into watching the landscape fly by, punctuated by the occasional village. By the time the taxi wend its way into the foothills of a low sprawling mountain range and the town Krillin sought, he was too tired to do anything but pay his fare and check in to his accommodation.

* * *

Morning brought the sun across Krillin's pillow and with it the realisation that this was a hard, unpleasant pillow on a hard, unpleasant mattress. He rolled over, groaning, and tried to wave the sun away. When that didn't work he squinted up at the ceiling and began the slow process of rising and taking in his surroundings.

The air was sharp and cold - Krillin pushed his toes into slippers as soon as they left the quilt - but the room gave the impression of warmth. It was clean and earthy and homey, even if the bed was hard and the facilities non-existent. He snapped a couple of photos for his mother, dressed quickly and headed out.

His room was in one of the larger homes in town, operating as a sort of bed and breakfast, and it was almost the only guest accommodation available. Leynilegstan didn't have a thriving tourism industry, especially not this far from the capital, but if there were really an international school around here the town would have hotels aplenty. Krillin supposed he'd known in his gut there was no school since he'd first looked into transport options and realised there wasn't so much as a bus. He didn't expect an airstrip in this uneven terrain, but a school like the one shown online would warrant a train service, especially in a country so starved for foreigner spending.

Because it would be a waste to come this far and not look, Krillin paid a kid way too much for his battered bicycle and rode north. The owner of the bed and breakfast had, after much confusion and mistranslation, suggested uncertainly this was the way to the school. She'd first told him the school was another town over, so Krillin was curious to see what could be here that wouldn't even warrant acknowledgement.

By the time he reached the dead end Krillin was sweaty and glad nobody was around to see how out of breath the ride had left him. He swore before backtracking, and found the turn-off a couple of hundred metres back towards the village. A battered sign in Cyrillic characters told him nothing, and the path was overgrown. He walked down it pushing the bike with one hand, holding the other over his face to deter foliage.

The collection of buildings at the end of the path definitely made up a school, but it definitely was not the one Krillin had seen in photographs. Instead of woollen blazers and immaculate brick, Krillin was looking at rusted tin rooves and doorways and window-frames with doors and glass long ago stolen or smashed. The old bag racks held nothing but dry leaves and when Krillin wheeled his bicycle over to a vandalised bike rack it became, he suspected, the only occupant for a very long time.

As he wandered in and out of the silent classrooms Krillin thought not so much about what this meant for Goku, what it said about his parents and the paperwork they'd produced. He thought instead about the history of the place, wondered how long it had lain dormant and why they'd closed it up. Logically, he supposed it was as simple as students being redirected to the next town over, because they'd built something nicer there, or hadn't the money to run both, or enrolments here were too low. Illogically, he wrote for himself a dozen tales of its closing, ranging from tragic deaths to political dastardry. He wondered how many children had gone uneducated because in a place like this it was impractical to send them all the way to the next town for school when they could be working at home.

If he were a real creative, Krillin thought, he would feel something flowing through this place, some resonant sense of sadness or loss or memory. That was the sort of thing authors and playwrights spoke about when they talked about inspiration. All he got was quiet stone, gently rustling leaves and a sense of something unknown and forever barred to him. It reminded him in a way of Eighteen.

Maybe he wasn't the creative man he'd imagined himself growing up to be, and was instead destined to be an historian or a bureaucrat. Or maybe he was just the sort of guy who found inspiration not in the beauty of a crystal brook babbling over smooth pebbles and bright fish, but in the breathless uncertainty of things that brushed past your legs as you swam in a deep lake in the late night.

He inhaled a lungful of the cold, clean air and eyed the old school.

"I'm going to write about you," he told it.


	24. Chapter 24: First Flowers of Whatever

**Chapter 24: The First Flowers of Whatever**

"Thank-you-for-calling-the-Son-residence-this-is- Goku-speaking."

Goku answered the phone in the over-rehearsed sing-song manner of a seven-year-old. Chichi smiled.

"Hi, Goku. Is Raditz there?"

"Is that you, Chichi? Do you mean here-here like right now, because no he's not, or do you just mean here like during half-term because yes to that one."

"Oh, um, yes. It's me. I just meant over half-term. I was just calling to see if you both wanted to come to the opening of our re-furbished restaurant. There are some seats for friends and I know you both appreciate good food."

"Wait a minute. Chichi. Hold on." He sounded urgent so Chichi stayed silent. "You have a _restaurant_?"

She frowned, but unfortunately he couldn't see her. "Yes. Remember, we have guest accommodation and hold weddings on the grounds and things. Of course we have a restaurant."

"Wow." He breathed it with such awe Chichi found it hard to stay annoyed at him for either forgetting or never making the deduction.

"Can I take that to mean you'll both be there?"

"There is no way you could keep us out."

"Great." Chichi gave him the date, time and address and hung up. Now even if Lunch and Maron totally screwed up her life, at least for the duration of half-term her father would think she had close friends.

Honestly, though, the way she'd imagined the phone call going had been different. She'd sort of imagined that Raditz would have answered it and she would have coolly and calmly invited him to the dinner, forgetting to mention Goku. He would have arrived in a suit, carrying champagne, and she would have pretended to be surprised Goku wasn't there, like it was all a misunderstanding. They would have had a wonderful dinner, talking and getting along just like they had at that party. After that the dream got a little frisky and didn't really need thinking about during the daytime.

* * *

In the middle of the night Chichi awoke in a sweat from a dream of the very non-frisky variety.

Raditz and Goku had come to the dinner and been seated at the table with Chichi and a couple of other teenagers she knew to be the children of investors, critics or local tourism business owners. But instead of one empty seat, for her father to use if he wanted to join them for a bit during his circulation of the room, there were two. Goku had looked over at the empty seat, then back at Chichi with big, sad eyes.

"Where's Haski?" he'd asked.

"We had a fight," Chichi had answered, lamely. "She didn't invite me to a party and now I'm not inviting her."

"She's your best friend and she must be really alone right now."

"We've been growing apart for a long time now, I just didn't see it."

"You don't have to be her best friend for your whole life. Maybe you'll never see her again after high school, but you need to decide what sort of person you are and what sort of friend."

Then he'd smiled and started eating and Chichi woke up.

* * *

"Damnit, Goku." Chichi was aggressively composing a polite text message while cursing Goku. Her dream was all the same things she'd gone back and forth saying to herself, but now she had to imagine them being said by Goku while he was looking like a kicked puppy.

Haski probably couldn't even come. Stupid dream Chichi should have just told dream Goku Haski couldn't come. Then awake Chichi wouldn't have to be awkwardly inviting Haski to a dinner while trying to skirt around the whole expulsion thing.

Text finished, Chichi put her phone on the kitchen table and turned to the counter to get started on making her dad some pancakes. She'd just poured the first one when her phone went off. Her father came in just in time to rescue the pancake and make his own breakfast while Chichi went to her room and listened to her big, tough, nothing-can-faze-me friend sob into the phone for three hours.

* * *

"What would you do if I dropped out of school?"

Mrs. Briefs laughed. "Oh, Bulma honey! You're so smart, you won't drop out. I know you'll pass everything with flying colours."

Bulma groaned. "Mum! I meant if I dropped out on purpose, like if I just left. Obviously."

Her father put down his newspaper and twitched his moustache thoughtfully. "Well, honey, if you wanted to travel or start a business or move straight on to university instead of finishing high school, those are all options. You're an intelligent young lady and we'll support any choice you make."

"Oh my _god_." Bulma pushed away her plate and stood. "You are both _impossible_!" She ran up to her room and hurled herself onto her bed. She lay there and stared at the ceiling, waiting for them to come up and ask what was wrong, even though she knew they wouldn't. She made some loud fake crying noises, but they'd both still be downstairs eating breakfast so they wouldn't hear her.

She hated coming home for holidays. It wasn't that she hated her home or her life or her parents. She just hated the feeling that if she weren't there nobody would particularly notice or care. This was the sort of mood she got in when she would always, always get back together with Yamcha, just out of boredom or a need to be noticed. She turned her phone over and over in her hands. She couldn't call Yamcha.

She texted Maron and Lunch, but didn't get a reply immediately so she tried Goku, then resorted to Krillin. Twenty minutes and a few more casual friends later she was feeling even more invisible than when she'd started.

"Okay," she told the ceiling. "Last resort. If there is one person in the world absolutely guaranteed to be spending their Saturday at home sitting at a desk with their computer and their phone..."

_'hi saw wikipedia article on micropenis wanted to know if u have a fav photo of self to be edited in or i can just choose 1 myself_'

"That is my most beautiful work ever," she told the phone, and hit send. Sure enough, her phone pinged almost immediately.

_'this is a very transparent attempt to get me to undress for you. unfortunately you have nothing i would want to see in return._'

Bulma laughed. Vegeta was a douchebag but at least he paid attention to her, however hard he tried not to. She couldn't blame him. She was pretty charismatic and irresistible. Except apparently to all the morons ignoring her texts, but whatever.

_'true your body is medically interesting bc micropenis but mine is just perfect. what r u doing this fine halfterm saturday?_'

_'you do a good job making it appear hideous then. my brother and i are out today.'_

Well, that was interesting. If he'd just said 'out' she would have assumed he was texting while he ran distance, but the most physically demanding thing Tarble had ever run was a dishwasher. "I'm going to call him," she told the ceiling. Saying it out loud made it sound less crazy. You could call people you knew. That was a thing.

He even answered it and everything.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello." He kind of sounded like he was torn between telling her to fuck off (because he wanted her to fuck off) and being polite (because he'd been so heavily drilled in telephone etiquette).

"Are you really out with your brother? Where are you?"

"Yes. We're in Parsley City."

"That's so close to West Capital. You should come up here!"

"Why would I want to do that." Grammatically it was a question, but his tone left no doubt he was just expressing the utter ridiculousness of the idea. Bulma decided anybody studying Latin should really have more respect for grammar than that, so she treated it as a question.

"Um, because it's awesome? You guys don't get out much, right? So you probably haven't been up here a whole lot. I can show you guys the best places to eat and I bet Tarble would go ape-shit for the art and music supply stores in town."

She could hear Tarble talking in the background. He must have overheard her. Hooked! Now she just had to reel them in. God, she really was desperate for attention, wasn't she.

"Seriously, I'm not trying to make you go shoe shopping with me or anything. I'll just show you guys around with the benefit of my local knowledge. I know where _everything_ is, I swear." She tried to think of something Vegeta might like to see and couldn't come up with anything that wasn't sport or study related. "I know a couple of foreign-language bookstores and I think one of them might be Russian? I don't know if you really have any relaxing hobbies like stamp collecting or shit, but you could get like a fun novel from there and then it's like study as well because you're using your language? I don't know."

He didn't say anything for a while, but she could hear Tarble still chattering in the background. The silence was unfortunate because it gave her time to consider just how pathetic it was that she needed so badly for this friendless prick to come and cheer her up. A friendless prick with whom she had shared the two worst kisses of her entire life, no less. How had sixth form gotten so much more pathetic than fifth already?

"All right. Where can we meet you?"

"You can just park at Capsule Corp. It'll be in your GPS as a landmark."

"We have to take the train. A driver brought us into town."

Bulma made an incredulous expression and thought a few choice things about how over-protected the Königs were before coming to a minor realisation. "This is going to get you two in a lot of trouble, isn't it?"

"My parents won't be happy with me."

Maybe she would be more sympathetic if she'd ever had that problem, but she hadn't, so she wasn't. "Just get off at Central, then. I'll wait right down near where you come off the train because I'm going to guess neither of you has ever utilised metro rail."

* * *

Chichi wanted to take her time and do her makeup properly, fix her hair, make sure everything was perfect. She'd printed makeup and hair tutorials from the internet and everything.

Instead, Haski had turned up hours early for dinner, ready to talk. Chichi found some new tutorials and did Haski's makeup, to cover up her puffy eyes and splotchy skin from crying. They did their hair to match, which was cute but meant Chichi didn't look unique and stand out the way she'd hoped. She did her own makeup quickly. This wasn't the evening she'd planned.

"I think they're going to send me to one of those hush-hush schools for 'troubled' rich kids," Haski explained as she pulled a curler from her hair. "It's not so much that I'm pissed over getting kicked out, but to end up booted over something I didn't do, when I've orchestrated so much shit for real."

"Some people believe you. They're trying to get you back in." Chichi didn't bother elaborating on the fact that the people who believed Haski seemed to have decided Chichi was responsible, as though she didn't have anything better to do than orchestrate elaborate frame-ups to get rid of people she didn't like. Honestly, if she had the time and inclination to waste her efforts on a scheme like that Haski would be one of the only people _left_ at the school. She'd keep some of the drama club, of course, since she'd need them to stage a production. Maybe even Krillin could stay, he hadn't been so bad lately. And Goku could probably stick around.

Haski shrugged. "I don't want to return and they're glad to see the back of me. I just want to know that my friends don't think I'm a liar and Bulma doesn't think I would genuinely try and steal shit she cares about. And that she didn't intentionally make it up or something."

"I don't know what Bulma thinks. We don't really talk."

Haski laughed and ran a brush through her new curls. Chichi did the same but her hair didn't achieve the same runway volume.

"Goku's going to be at the dinner tonight and he hangs out with her a lot. He might be able to tell you if she thinks you're innocent." This might work out well, actually. Haski could entertain Goku with her aura of conflict and Chichi could entertain Raditz with her sparkling wit.

"Oh, cool. I didn't know you were such good friends with him."

Chichi shrugged. "I think _everyone's_ friends with Goku."

* * *

This was amazing.

Tarble hardly ever got to go into West Capital. Their place was out in the countryside, so it was a fair trip to get into the city. Usually, when he or his brother went into town it was just to Parsley City, which wasn't tiny but it wasn't a huge metropolis like West Capital. His parents had properties scattered across the country, including a very nice flat in West Capital, but Tarble never got to stay there for the same reason Tarble never got to do half the other stuff he wanted to do: Vegeta.

Any time Tarble suggested a day or a weekend in town it was 'no, we can't disrupt Vegeta's study' or 'no, Vegeta needs to train' or 'no, Vegeta has competitions this weekend for cross country/track/rugby/polo/one of the other millions of things we are always so busy paying attention to him for'.

And if you'd asked him before approximately right now, Tarble would have always said Vegeta was way too uptight to break schedule and do something fun.

Not that he looked like he was having a whole lot of fun. Tarble was loving the train. He was people-watching, drinking in the differences between the people in this train carriage and the people he normally met. Vegeta was people-watching too, but it was more of a paranoid hyper-vigilance. He was probably expecting them to start committing crimes at any moment, driven to violence and theft by their socio-economic status. Vegeta didn't get out a lot.

"You look weird," Tarble whispered to him. Vegeta was perched on the very edge of his seat, making as little physical contact as possible with the train.

"We get off at the next stop," Vegeta replied, but failed to address the fact that his awkwardness was embarrassing Tarble.

Getting off involved an unusual amount of jostling, which would have bothered Tarble if it hadn't been so amusing to watch his brother trying not to punch any of the jostlers. Their guide clearly agreed, because when they found Bulma she had a big, slightly malicious grin on her face and she tried to pat Vegeta on the cheek.

"Thanks for offering to show us around," Tarble said.

"No problem. Hey, I'm figuring since you guys are here so late we might as well spend the afternoon seeing sights and then we can go to a party. You can head back home in the morning." Tarble's eyes must have lit up because she gave him a thumbs up. "You know, if you're going to get in trouble for coming up here anyway you might as well really enjoy it. In for a penny, in for a pound."

Vegeta started to protest but Tarble cut him off. "That sounds great. We like parties."

Bulma snorted and punched Vegeta in the shoulder. "Sure you do."

"Stop touching me."

Tarble walked a few steps behind them, watching his brother and Bulma bicker. He didn't know Bulma very well. She was one of the more prominent fixtures in the form above his, and he'd noticed her in amongst the ridiculous number of people Vegeta had invited to Tarble's birthday, but up close she wasn't quite what he'd expected.

She was tacky, Tarble decided. She wore too much jewellery and not enough clothes and she laughed too loud and sometimes snorted and she kept insulting Vegeta, which was not okay with Tarble. The only person who should be complaining about Vegeta (to his face, anyway) was Tarble. Anyone else should just back off, especially girls who made crude jokes and thought it was okay to wear shorts like that with pasty white legs like that.

He was mentally amending his description of Bulma's legs to include some unflattering thigh-related adjectives when she stopped, spun around and grabbed his hand.

"Tarble, this is, I shit you not, the largest art supply store in the country. Do you want to take a look?"

Okay, maybe her legs weren't _that_ fat. Plenty of guys preferred girls that were curvaceous, anyway.

The store was four storeys in an historical old building and Tarble could have spent all afternoon there. Eventually, though, Bulma got bored of posing little mannequins into crude scenes and they moved on.

They visited a lot of places that were exciting for Tarble. Much more so than Parsley City, West Capital was full of art stores, galleries, music stores and quirky little record stores. By the time the sun was starting to go down Tarble was carrying so many purchases he actually protested at the idea of stopping at another store.

"Don't be a whiner, Tarble. Your brother is annoying but he does deserve to stop at one shop that might interest him."

Vegeta sniped back and they bickered all the way down a narrow back lane lined with little shops catering to ex-pats from various countries.

"Here."

They all three squeezed into a tiny bookstore which purported to sell books in Russian and English translations of Russian books. Tarble couldn't fit down the aisles with his bags so he stood uncomfortably at the front and exchanged awkward glances with the man behind the register.

"Our mother was born in Russia but I don't speak it," he said at last, as though he needed to explain himself. The man just nodded and Tarble felt so weird about it he retreated outside and bought a pastry from one of the tiny bakeries. By the time the others emerged from the bookstore the street lamps had come on.

* * *

Raditz didn't feel like Orange Star was really right for his little brother, but damn if it didn't net him some good food.

"Great," he enthused.

"Fantastic," agreed Goku.

When they'd been seated there had been little ... what do you call them, like canapés? Anyway, they'd been out on the table just waiting and he and Goku had demolished them. They'd felt a little guilty when the rest of the table turned up but after all, they were sitting with the owner's daughter. Chichi dashed back to the kitchen and in minutes a waiter was out with a new tray for the table.

Ever gracious, the Sons allowed the rest of the table to try the nibblies and instead worked on eating all the bread.

At their table for six there was one empty chair for the owner, in case he dropped by, then there was Raditz himself, his brother, that girl Chichi he'd met at the party, a blonde Goku told him was called Haski and another young man, who Chichi introduced as being the son of some restaurant investors and whose name Raditz had promptly forgotten.

"Do you want to swap seats, Goku?" Chichi was sitting next to him and Raditz assumed Goku would want to sit next to her. He hadn't said anything, but Raditz assumed the first flowers of love were whatever. That was as poetic as Raditz got, but Chichi was Goku's type, physically, and she seemed like a nice enough kid, if a little shy.

"Oh!" Goku spoke first, then swallowed his bread. "Sorry, Chichi. Did we sit in the wrong seats?"

"No, no. Not at all. Stay where you are."

Too polite, Raditz thought. It was silly to be so polite you couldn't even get your guests sitting in the right chairs. "I insist," he insisted. "Goku's your guest, so he should really be next to you. I'm just a hanger-on."

He laughed and Goku laughed and they completed the seat swap. Now Goku could chat with his friend and Raditz could sit next to this Haski chick. She was a little young for him, being one of Goku's classmates, but she had wicked eyes and the neckline to match.

"Raditz." He shook her hand.

"Haski."

"Bread?"

She nodded and fiddled with something silver, rolling it across her knuckles while she held out the other hand for the bread. He reached across the table and his sleeve dragged in the herb butter.

"The fuck?" He looked down at his sleeve, and back at Haski's knuckles. She'd stolen his cufflink. Raditz met her eyes with an incredulous shake of his head. Her smile widened and she closed a fist around the cufflink, dropping both hands demurely into her lap.

Very wicked.

* * *

~I wanted to finish all the half-term stuff in this chapter but it was going to get too long. :C Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter. You all warm my heart and other sappy stuff like that. ~


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